Transcripts
1. Course Preview: Well, hello, and welcome to the fundamentals of marketing for small businesses. My name is Nour and I will be guiding you throughout this exciting journey together on how to market and scale your business. In this intensive course, we will walk together through the steps and process of marketing your small business from the ground up and boosting your brand. You will start by creating in-depth research and understanding your customers' fears, conflicts, wants, and desires. and learn why they buy stuff in the first place. Then you will move into analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of your direct competitors. Learn from their mistakes, and develop a customer-centric product that serves your targeted customers' Unmet wants and desires. You will also learn how to differentiate your product from your competition through product innovation and learn how to pull ideas from different cultures, market industries and themes to come up with Jaw-dropping products. That takes your competition by surprise and motivate customers to try your products and do most of the marketing for you. Then I will teach you the steps and process of how to take your product's features and benefits and turn them into social and functional advantages. This will be the marketing pitch that you will use to explain your product, connect with your customers and sell your product and services to them effectively. I will also show you through examples of how the package your product into eye-grabbing offers and deals that grab your customers' hearts and wallets. Once you get the fundamentals right I will take you on a deep dive and give you a crash course on how to position and sell your brand visually Through product photography, social media lifestyle images, your logo, and your packaging design. Then I will teach you how to take your product and distributed it to the marketplace be it online or offline. I will walk you through tons of visual examples of how to effectively leverage social media both organic and paid to promote your brand, attract a stranger and move them through your marketing funnel To become your brand advocate. You will also learn how to plan and design for your marketing automated systems and funnels How to optimize your Ads and landing pages for high conversions and ultimate sales. At the end of this course, I will show you how to transform your brand from a commodity business Into a celebrity brand and build a halo effect around it. This will position your brand as an authority and give you the power to price your product as a premium brand. This course comes with tons of practical examples, visual guidelines, checklists, and exercises That you can apply to real life projects and businesses. There is no fluff talk here, only practical strategies and tactics that work. However, let me be direct and honest with you. This course is not for someone who is looking to make a quick buck in a short time. or searching for quick tips on how to rank on the top list of a search engine or how to increase Social media following massively. This course is designed for people serious about marketing as a career and consider it as a profession Rather than a hobby or for small business entrepreneurs, struggling with their marketing efforts and looking for a strategic approach to start, grow, and scale their brands. If you are ready to start a new business or grow your marketing effort, then welcome You are in the right place. What are you still looking for? Come in and let's make some sales.
2. Course Introduction: Hello there, welcome to the course, I'm very excited to meet with you here on this short But an informative journey. Please take a seat and feel comfortable before we dive into the world of marketing. Allow me to remind you that this course comes with downloadable files and assignments. I do not require the assignment of the course to be finished to graduate from this course. However, I recommend doing the work If you wish to master the fundamentals of marketing. You can find the assignments along with The downloadable files attached to your course materials. All right, now that we are done with the boarding process. Please fasten your seat belt and enjoy the journey. Let's start by having a chat about marketing. It is a topic that frustrated most beginners and newbies in business because of its diversity and complexity. Yet what made things worse With all the misleading information and gurus who call themselves marketers, they made things More complicated to grasp so they can profit the most. However, fear not. I'm here for you. If you put some effort into finishing this course along with the assignments, I promise you You will become a marketing ninja and you will teach those gurus the true mastery of marketing. At the end of this course, you will have the knowledge and tools to market your small business From scratch and build a likable and profitable brand. Okay, so to better understand marketing, let's first clarify what isn't marketing. Discounts, promotions and advertising are not marketing. Yes, discounts, promotions and advertising are not marketing. They are only tools of marketing that we leverage to communicate an offer with the customer and drive demand to our business, which allows us over time to build social proof around our brand and become more desirable. All right, then, what is marketing? Marketing is the art of listening to people, beautiful people like you or you or crazy people like me. Since people are the ones who spend the money to buy our products and services, it makes sense that marketing is all about them. Don't you think? For us to understand people, we have to listen from a place of empathy that means No hard judgment or opinion toward what they like or how they behave. Once we understand them, marketing becomes just a matter of mirroring them and giving them what they want, or helping them to move to a different position in exchange for money. A great marketer understands that the power of his brand relies on people. It's all about serving them right while making a profit. It's a win-win relationship instead of only focusing on the bottom line and selfish wants and only profit. Think about when you come from a place of scarcity and greediness versus when you come from a place of generosity and abundance. How do people perceive you and behave toward you? A myth that we have to falsify before getting deeper is that most people think they have to be introverts or extroverts to be in marketing or to sell. That's far from the truth. I'm an extreme introvert and I have no problem with selling and marketing to people because marketing Is not about myself at all. It's about the other person. You could be the best talker and your message still perceive and bothering annoying and boring. You could be very good at listening and have a deep empathy toward people. Yet people cannot find you and have the benefit to enjoy your product and service. The best marketers are the one who can combine both great listening and explaining skills. This combination will allow the relationship with the customer to become conversational and marketing Will become the sturdy rope that connects the brand with the customer. Since marketing is all about the other person, trust sits at the core of the relationship Between the brand and the customer. Once trust is established, the purchase is only a matter of a transaction. It's only a few second process. Therefore, in marketing, we do our best to build trust and make the sale to be smooth and flawless. This means that no manipulation is allowed, otherwise, the reputation of the business will be On the line and no transaction is possible to be made, which, as you may know, one day or the other Will get you out of the business. A wise marketer leverage marketing and brand reputation as a reliable and robust shield For a long-lasting business. In short, marketing is about listening to people and understanding their wants, needs, and desires. Then leveraging everything we got to let them know about us. Build trust. Make them buy from us and come back for more. In this course throughout our journey, we will go through The critical steps of building and refining your small business marketing strategy, starting from The phase of pre-marketing, which includes your customers' research, your product, and your niche research and finally researching your competition. and for doing this research, you will leverage the power of the mighty Internet to collect data and intelligence. However, sometimes you might need to step out, visite some stores, and do all location research. Nothing you cannot do or will put you in any embarrassing situation. The pre-marketing phase will serve as the core of your brand. Without it, you don't have to bother and start a business. Once we are done with defining our pre-marketing research, we will take all the information and form A post-marketing plan around it. Starting from your brand visual presentation to planning your marketing content, then talking about how to offer, distribute and sell your product both online and offline, then finish with planning For your sales and marketing funnels and systems for the post-marketing phase You will use some tools. Don't look at them and feel scary. You don't have to use all of them. If you are starting out, you're probably going to use one or two tools at most. So don't worry about them for now. In this course, I will not speak in details about each tool. It will take forever and it's disrespectful for your valuable time and investment. I might refer you to some resources since learning such tools is available everywhere. My plan for this course is to teach you how to become more of a strategic marketer rather than only Focusing on the tools and then tell you how to leverage each tool to win in the marketplace. To better learn how to market, you need to understand how marketing plays a role in the entire pipeline and how it works with the different departments of the business. The marketing department sits at the center of product development, sales, brand visual presentation and product distribution. It serves as a hub and connects each of these departments to unify the voice of the business and better serve the end-customer. These departments work hand in hand together under the broader scope, which is the brand. A brand is how the customer perceives the entire business experience and builds a mental image about it. We talked about branding and details in my branding course. If you like, you can check it out. Marketing begins from the moment the entrepreneurs come with an idea for a solution. You first have to do the market research to verify your idea, and once you produce your idea You need to bundle it into an offer that sells. Then you need to find customers who are interested in your proposal. Logically, this will lead you to a process in which you have to verify those customers and filter out the buyers from the non-buyers. and once it's done, you move to close a sale and fulfill the product. Once the product is delivered, you are responsible for the after-sale service, customer satisfaction and maintaining the relationship with the customer, hopefully, they will come back and refer Your business to others. This is a process that when you design and lock in place, it will become the marketing system that You can't rely on. You can duplicate it and scale it up to run and grow your business. Keep in mind, if you follow the right steps and process, you can engineer a successful marketing machine. Assuming you got the money to hire the right expertise with cash you can take something is below average and bring the expertise to polish it and make it look fantastic. However, that doesn't mean people will desire it and would want to buy it. I would also like to remind you that if you believe marketing is about hustling and hard work This is not always the case. If you lack the right resources to market your business over hustling might get you nowhere. It will exhaust you emotionally and financially and lead you to quit on your business. It's a lot of work with different expertise. That's why you should always start small and simple. However, if you want to grow fast, which is not preferable if you are new to the market Then you probably need to hire a team that helps you to get to where you want. Forgive me if I am saying this at the beginning of the course. My goal is not to discourage you. Over the years I have noticed that most of the newbie entrepreneurs or marketers ideas about marketing Are inflated and lack practicality. Therefore, it is my job as your instructor to bring you back to reality and put you on the right track For this course I would Assume that we will start with this budget. I will also assume that you've got the time to be patient, to take things slowly and fully Understand your market. I will also assume that you will do the work to execute on your ideas and make things happen. Marketing is not about theories and ideas. Instead, it's about the right strategy and the right execution. And lastly, I want you to know something very critical for your mindset before we dig any deeper into Marketing and sales, which is you should never, ever, like, ever shy away from marketing and selling Your products and services. People are looking to buy stuff all the time. They want to be served and fulfilled all the time. If they don't have the cash, they will pay with a credit. So don't worry about that. They just don't want to be bothered with the wrong product or be scammed. So if you have something valuable to sell, then you must market it and let the world enjoy it. I mean, if I didn't market this course, how would I be able to teach you about marketing and improve your business? All right, so that's enough for me Rambling. Let's end this video with the first assignment. I would like you to think about the brand you like and admire. Then I would want you to visit their store or their website. I would like to inspect and think deeply about what you admire about this brand, what makes it desirable and attractive to you in the first place? What is the connection between you and the brand? How does it reflect your lifestyle and spirits? Is it their creative marketing? Is it the design of their products? Is it the customer service and experience? What is it? Your job is to find it out. Take your time. No rush and remember to take notes. Have fun for now and I will see you in the next video.
3. Customers Research + Developing USP: Hello there, welcome back. In this video, we will take a deeper dive into customers' research. Let's start by talking about the three key types of customers, starting with the customers On a limited budget. This group of customers is always on the hunt of the lowest price deals and the most extensive collection possible. These consumers are served by large corporate brands such as Amazon, Wal-Mart, Zara, and so on. Those corporations had invested billions of dollars in producing average quality products At the lowest-cost possible, for you as a small business This is a danger zone to serve. You must stay away from it. Only handling the cost of free shipping and returns might drive you out of the business. Never mind spending tons of cash on driving traffic to your store, be it a brick and mortar Or an online store However, sadly, most small businesses make the mistake of attracting such customers By consistently discounting their price and neglecting their product quality. Always stay away from price competition. You cannot afford it. You don't have enough resources to build systems and processes to produce, store and finance Large quantities of products and sell them at the lowest price, for you at the moment Don't think about it It's not workable. On the other end of the spectrum, you get the luxury and high end premium customers served by brands That sell the image and lifestyle of wealth and power. Such brands are Versace, Giorgio Armani, Rolex, Cartier, and Rolex, for such brands to sell aa luxury image. They rely on sponsoring celebrities, building luxurious in-store experiences, hiring top notch artists, Working with the best designers, and spending millions, if not billions of dollars on marketing activities and shows that create the halo effect and reflect the image of luxury. Keep in mind that people who buy and own those brand care about the social image and the access To high-status, business or personal relations. Most of them don't care about the price of the item as much as the image they can gain. Brand's heritage and history, product quality, and building high social image are the brand's top priorities. This group of customers is also difficult for you as a small business with limited resources to serve. This brings us to the third and last type of customers which are value-oriented lifestyle, low to mid Premium customers. This group of customers are highly sophisticated and care about living a meaningful, slow-moving life With personal values. They are passionate about relationships, expressive personality, and character. They are also concerned about the quality of the product, but within an affordable budget. And they by all means expect to pay more for it. This group also cares about inclusivity, equality and fairness. They are a collection of unique group and minorities of our society, and they admire the brand that Makes them feel welcomed and respected. They want to work hand in hand and buy from brands that deliver value and support people in need. They also care about the environment and the sustainability of our planet and buy from brands that take Responsibility for creating a healthy ecosystem rather than only focusing on cutting costs Making a profit and standardizing production at the expense of the environment. This is an area for small business to shine, and this is the group of the customers that you must give Your attention to and serve. Do it right, and they will take part in your brand and will spend more for better quality products and more pleasant experiences. This is an opportunity to lift your business from a commodity business to a brand with values that connect With the customers on a personal level and serve a community to make a meaningful impact and generate profit. OK, let's now talk about why people buy stuff in the first place. And it's mainly for four primary reasons. First, people buy a product as a tool to fix or solve a physical problem. For example, a disabled person who needs to move from a place to another requires a tool. An athlete who needs to run fast with comfort also needs tool. Second, people buy a solution to solve a mental or emotional problem. People throughout their lives go through many conflicts, be it with themselves, with others and with society. This conflict caused them to suffer emotionally and become frustrated. Therefore, they look for a solution that solve those conflicts. Third, people buy things that help them up with their fears. Such as the fear of death, the fear of losing one's home, the fear of losing face The fear of not being desirable and many more, it's that inner voice of fear and frustration What triggers people to buy otherwise if everything looks and feels fine Why should people spend money to purchase solutions in the first place? A lady who thinks she's overweight and lost confidence in her beauty might look for a solution. She would love to get her body back in shape. She fantasizes about being asked for a romantic date and receives valuable gifts which make her feel Desirable again and boost her confidence, which will affect the overall quality of her performance. Now, I might have a belief that love, success, and desirability are not about the outer image But who am I to judge? Remember as a marketer, our job is not to judge or apply our values to people. Instead, we must understand how most people think and like to be perceived. And once we figure out what they fear, we offer them a solution that fits their situation Then ask for their credit cards. Your job as a marketer is to act as a doctor. It's being quite and engaging into active listening, showing empathy, displaying your credibility, Then recommending a solution that fits their problem. This means that your solution needs to be personalized and customized rather than being standardized and generic. Another reason that people buy things is to gain pleasure. This pleasure will not only take people out of their daily lives conflict but will also give them A quick shot of happiness and satisfaction. Some of those pleasures we care about are spending more money in exchange for a better Higher life quality and being treated nicely. Travelling away from the boring and harsh reality. Fears and pleasures works on a subconscious level. Think of them as an automated system that works in the brain's background, a bunch of complicated Chemical reactions. However, as marketers, we should have a brief ideas about how they work. I will not go deep on this topic. It's beyond our course and my field of expertise. But here are some ideas to think about. Just as a side notice. I'm not a doctor. I have done my research. If you are an expert, please correct me if I went wrong somewhere. As you may know, cortisol is a stress hormone caused by fear or frustration. However, for the brain and the human body to stay healthy, it needs to balance itself and distress That mental pressure, the fastest way for the brain to distress, is to release a shot of dopamine, a hormone responsible For happiness that is caused by accomplishment or release Oxytocin, a hormone that is caused by social connection and bond. Our brain is attracted and always in seek for relaxing and pleasurable stimuli, especially when we are In pain, which if misled and used Wrong could cause our brain to enter a loop for addiction and always wanting more. That's why you find motivation gurus Make money quick scams and dating websites are very, very appealing and addictive to the desperate Brain because once they hook you in your mind, gets into the loop and habit of coming back and wanting For more to receive That shot of Dopamine. That's how many businesses use marketing to make you come back for more food, drinks, fashion, motivation, Gambling and more. Keep in mind, this knowledge needs to be used ethically. There are so many people in need for help and are being scammed and misled by fake businesses with Fake solutions Using those practices, I wanted to arm you with all the tools and knowledge you need to serve And help the people in need. So now that you understand that answer me quickly Why do people buy a condom? Do they enjoy it? Think about it. Why do ladies buy this notice It's ultra-thin. Don't get embarrassed. This what marketing is all about. OK, here's another one. Why people buy fresh-mint gum before going on a date or attend a meeting. Well, here is your answer. All the three of the above products, they act as a release for a problem, as an assurance for not getting into Troubles or not be placed in an awkward position. The first two are not enjoyable, I guess, but they prevent a problem. OK, here's another one. Why people buy a Rolex watch. How about a Lamborghini? What's about an expensive suit. Do they buy them only to solve a problem? I don't think so. Isn't all about that social image and differences? Hey, look at me. I'm wealthier than you are. We, as a human like to show off, don't we? Knowing all the above information should get you to realize that your product is not as important As you might think and probably Its Features are not your best selling proposition. Some people love to be reminded with beautiful memories of the people they love. Some like to have the power to create and transform things, and others want to help and give and some Just love to connect and become a part of the community that inspired and benefits the whole. You'll also find that some will buy your product because it gives them the tool, sense, and possibility Of freedom. The more you get to know your customers, the more you understand that different people buy your product For a different reason and your service is only the bridge to achieve what they want, not what you Thought and planned for them to want. It's your job as a business to serve them, regardless of how they look, think, and the things They believe in. And regardless of their age or social hierarchies and differences, all the above factors play An important role in why people buy things. However, the following reasons affect people taking a purchasing decision on a more personal level and in more specific areas around the world. First, come, culture and religion. They come with specific rules and regulations that shape and influence the mindset of the community and the individual. And they play an essential role in how people decide. Try to sell the best ribs to a Muslim or a Jew and see what kind of results you get. It's almost close to impossible to sell it to them. No matter how good your ribs are, understanding the culture and the mindset of your customer is essential. If you are looking to sell them your products and services, it needs to fit their rules, needs and Limited wants, not yours. Another aspect of how people decide is their education and their level of sophistication and the influence Of the people whom they follow, and socially shaped and motivated by another aspect of their lifestyle and spirit, which will be reflected in the style or visual theme they like. Someone more into Bohemian style, like to eat at Bohemian restaurant and shop from Bohemian stores. They expect a specific visual language that differs from someone bold and colorful. Another point is your customers income. Most people love to buy expensive stuff and they dream about it. However, that doesn't mean they can afford it, right now They might be on the limited budget. You can serve them as followers, but you do not expect to focus your marketing message on them. If you do so, you probably won't find any success. Another aspect to consider is if your customer is a single person and think in terms of self-interest or if they are committed to a relationship and think about the benefit of the whole relationship. People at different stages of their lives make decisions and spend money differently. They mostly withdraw their happiness by taking care and gifting people around them to make them happy. Which in return makes them happy. These aspects work together and affect why people buy stuff. And as you can see by now, that only applying a massive discount for your product is not The right solution or the reason for people to buy your products or services. Put it simply, if you don't mirror your customer wants and desire, then your offer will not be a match. Please understand that I'm trying to get you out of the business of trying to convince people To buy your product, which is desperate selling. I would like you to listen with a sense of empathy toward them. Position yourself as an expert, then offer solutions. This will make you desirable and will make them come to you rather than you going to them. You can notice across the web or in many stores that many businesses make the mistake of rushing And asking for the sale without taking the time to understand the customer's needs and wants. Take, for example, the fitness industry. Most businesses assume that people are into buying the workout machine or buy a member card, they spent all Of their marketing effort to devalue their brand And annoy the customer once they get you their fitness trainer assumes that most new customers Are desperate and looking for someone like them, cute and strong. And they assume that 99% of people visit the gym only to build a shredded, sculpted and sexy body. They don't take into consideration that there is a large group of people who go to the gym just to relax Build endurance and strength. In contrast Some go to build muscles, others go to the gym to get group support and motivation and others go there To socialize and be happy while others need to work out for a specific need. If you keep repeating the same pitch over and over to a different group of customers, you will become A distraction more than a solution. Now, assuming that you understood people motivation, let's take a deeper look at people's needs and limits In terms of income and time, you can find that some people can afford financially and has time To be with a premium personal trainer and don't want the distraction of the gym, while others can only afford To be in group training at the gym. And some can't even afford a trainer or go to the gym and they can only choose a cheaper, self-motivated Do-It-Yourself option. And if you truly understand people, you can find that most are lazy enough and don't want to go through The workout at all. So they will look for an easier solution and probably the most profit could be generated serving them. That's why for a marketer, it's very dangerous to fall in love with your products and solutions very early. You should be looking for problems that people have and always be trying to find the easiest Most workable and profitable solution for you to execute on small scale rather than being stuck with A specific product. Also, keep in mind that for small businesses, there are a lot of new opportunities in the small niches market Homemade and handmade products, gluten-free and personalized product, organic and healthy products Locally and nationally made products. OK, so now that they I have told you everything you need to know about your customers, my question To you will be who is your customer? You should find them, get closer to them, then be able to mirror their wants and desires. OK, so here's your assignment for this week. I would like you to do a simple customers research. Don't worry, I won't ask you to do a survey. I would like you to search for problems that people have around your industry, get into forums and read How do people express their frustrations and pains, read through conversations and understand what people want Do not assume research and confirm I also want you to go through reviews, be it on Yelp.com or Amazon.com, or any platform of your industry. Then I want you to look for what makes people happy or turn them off about the specific way a business Makes them feel. To be clear, we are not looking at how the people rate the product rather than how the product or service Made them feel. I also want you to go to Pinterest.com and find images that describe the style of the people You want to serve. How do they look? What do they wear? What is their lifestyle? And how do they express it? You can see that these two groups of people look and behave in different ways. I also would like you to understand some aspects of your customers' culture, religion, and people That influence them and also try to imagine the relationship structure. As you said, those aspects play an essential role in people's decision of making a purchase. If you prefer, you can always find a few friends and have chatting conversation. Just get to know people and ask them about specific problem and then be willing to understand their Struggling and what they are looking for without any judgment or opinion. Keep it short and sweet. All right. So I also got for you a small second assignment. It would be fun. You will love it. Let's play evil for a while. I want you to tell someone to ask you to buy them or bring them something they want. For example, ask someone, would you like me to get you a cup of water? If they say sure, tell them how you like it and they say, cold, get it for them and serve it With a smile, then notice How would they would react Repeat that behavior for few times and see how they will like you. They will start to believe and feel that you appreciate and understand them. Now, try the same experiment with the same or another person, but this time give them The reverse of what they wanted. Now see the reaction repeat therefore a few times and now they start to hate you. Do it more, they will ignore you and start to get really pissed off you. It is a natural reaction. Remember to take it easy, explained later, apologize and be respectful. Most of the time, people cannot control their defensive behavior. It goes against their ego. Marketing is the same. So many marketers keep promoting their products without taking the time to understand their customers and becoming desirable, not knowing that they are spending tons of money on marketing to customers Who don't want their products or services. Successful marketers understand that great marketing always start from clean and solid foundations Which is understanding people. Once you get that locked and in place, then you can apply all the beauty and desirability you want on A solid foundation. But sadly, most marketers do quite the opposite, and that's why their marketing sucks. If you don't understand what people want and desire, you just can't sell to them, period. I hope by now you appreciate the value of slowing down and getting to know Your customers on a deeper level. Take your time to do the homework. There's no need to rush, take care for for now And I will see you in the next video.
4. Market and Niche Research + Product Differentiation: Hey there, welcome back in this video, we will talk a little bit about what options do customers Have beside your business, which leads us to talk about your offering versus your competition. For small businesses There are two types of major competition. First, a direct competitor is a business that competes with you in the same category, head-to-head On the same customer's attention, time, money with the same products and offers. In this competition, consumers are always looking for a better overall experience, which means a better Location, well-packaged deals, more friendly customer service, and a relaxing overall feelings. It's not always about a cheaper offer or a specific product. Still, sometime it's about the overall enjoyable experience and they would choose a brand or a place That makes them feel treated nicely for their money. If your business has been losing customers to direct competition, then you might lack in some of those Areas and you probably have focused all of your attention on the product and price rather than The entire experience. Being aware of that and shifting your attention to the overall customer experience will drive more loyalty Toward your brand because most customers nowadays love to try so many things, then choose the best Option with the best experience. Then they would normally default to that option and make it at the top of their list. If your competition is weak in this area, then your customer will highly likely to end up with Your brand. The second type of competition is indirect competition, and this time competitors compete on the same Customer's attention and money, but with a different offering. And because of that, they don't compete with you on the same customer's time. If you are a burger shop and your customer wants a pizza, it's a choice of taste, nothing better or better burger experience. They cannot be at both a burger and pizza shop. There isn't a lot to do about their decision. Therefore, in this course we will focus on direct competition. Your job is to understand what the market offers by becoming an investigator and to research your top Three direct competition around your area. They can be in a walking distance or in your city. If you live in a small area. I would like you to visit their store or send someone to visit and try to take a realistic and clear View of the entire customer experience. From the moment you get your foot inside until the moment you leave, how do they greet you? How do they make you feel inside the store? How do they explain their product and services? Are they pushy and annoying or respectful and friendly? How do they up-sell and cross-sell different products and services? What makes them different from other stores? How do they get customers? Is it their store location, website reservation, or being listed on Yelp.com? Are they mentioned in any form of media? What websites have published articles about them? This could be easily achieved by Google Search and by checking the backlands to their website. Besides, we want to learn if they spend money to gain customers by advertising on social media or Google search. For that I will link you to free tools in the home or section. We also want to go through their top-selling products and services. How do they package their products and at what price point do they sell it? Finally, I would like you to go through customers reviews and highlight what customer like and dislike About their products and services and see if there are missing gaps and weaknesses that the customer wishes to exist that you can bring to the market and leverage as a strength. All right. So now that you have a clear idea about what your competition is offering, we want to avoid replicating Almost everything they did and do the opposite. Here is why there are only two ways to win for a small business. The first way is to take something that already exists and make it better, faster, more efficient. It's a non-ending game and it normally ends with price competition and the customer will choose The cheaper offer. If both products are similar, that makes sense. However, there is a better way for small business to win and at a lower cost. It's simple if you will spend a little extra time on research and ideation. Nowadays we live in a time where people are bored with everything generic and they look more toward A unique, exciting and bold experience. In this place, they can spend some fun time, take beautiful photographs, and try new stuff Be it unique store design or uniquely designed products. As a marketer, this is an important strategic choice. When I'm starting as a small business, I don't have a limitless check to burn on marketing. Therefore, my goal is to build the marketing within the experience or the product. I want to do my best to turn it into a self-marketing machine, starting a coffee shop just for the sake of offering ordinary coffee and experience. Just like Starbucks won't be a good starting point. People already got Starbucks. Why come to my place? But if I use My budget and a little extra effort and offer the same thing that people usually love to buy, but represented Differently with simple materials at a lower cost. This is playing a different game. It's not only about the taste of the product anymore. That's a hard point to sell. Cute and unique visuals are faster to market and sell, especially on social media and the Internet. You can see such strategies adapted in cities that highly depends on tourism such as Tokyo, Seoul and California. Such products and businesses become an attraction point that attracts influencer and sophisticated customers To spread the word around your business for the simple reason that it makes them feel cool, cute smart and trendy in front of their audience and friends. Such a strategy will also get your customer to get more likes and compliment, which makes them Feel better about sharing their images. And guess what? Your product with your logo will be there for free. Remember, marketing is all about others, their self love, feeling love and being appreciated. If you can design experiences and products that get people to get the feeling of such attention You got yourself a free marketing machine that will work for you forever, which is so much easier to sell Than pushing your product and services. Overwhelming and disturbing your audience about things they don't desire gives them something That makes them feel and look cool, something that looks different or beautifully presented in a way That they cannot resist But to show it off this way of driving word of mouth will save you so much money to come At the same time your competition burns cash trying to get those customers back. But you might ask, what if my product does not have a visual appeal to it? And the answer is simple serve a small group of people With a necessary need that difficult to find somewhere else? For example, in the bread category, there are so many brands that make bread with every flavor You could wish at every price point you could afford. Those brands have the best distribution and process in place, which requires you to be an outstanding Bread making machine to win such a game. However, if you find a small group of people that have a specific need with demand, but poorly served Here's an opportunity for your small business to shine. This will allow you to become the best choice when choices are limited and once you are the best You can charge a premium price. Once trust in your brand is established, you can gradually scale to entire product line and dominate this niche, which might end in a merger and acquisition from a large corporate brand. You can easily Research subcategories on Amazon.com, a category that has enough customer base with unmet and underserved Wants and desires. If you are a service business, you can always search for the submarkets in your industry. Here are a few things to look for while you are looking for your niche. First, please note that throughout my entire talk I did not talk about inventing something Entirely new or weird that is very risky for small businesses, especially when you are starting. Everything we talked about is this, take a product that already has a demand. You know, people love it, such as ice-cream, improve it, make it more interesting and desirable. That's it. Another thing I want you to be looking for is I want you to be aware of the price point of your core product A low priced product is costly to market with low margins. It requires massive sales quantity to make some profit. Without a large marketing budget, it would be tough to get profitable. A higher price point was higher profit would leave you with wider margins to play with. Another thing that I'm looking for, products and services that people actually in need For consistent use and I can develop into an entire line of products rather than one product. I want to create opportunities for up sales cross-sell and to be able to build an entire brand lifestyle Around my products. I also would want you to stay away from commodity products, such products No matter how much you try to improve its perceived value, there always will be an expected price tag That already exists in the consumer's mind and difficult to sell at a premium price. One last thing that I would look for is to find addictive products people need to buy all the time Such as protein bars, beauty creams, or services that require a subscription Things If I do a great job in hooking and serving the customer, they will have to come back for more. This will lower my marketing costs and will make my business primarily profit engine depends on Recurring revenue rather than always burning cash trying to acquire new customers. And here is a final tip. If you can develop a thick skin and hire critics and top reviewers to try your products and go through The entire customer experience, that would be excellent. This is a must if you want to be in the top range of the top brands. Those people have gone through hundreds, if not thousands of businesses, and they will tell you What it takes to be top notch. It's better to take it from critics rather than a dissatisfied customer. All right. So now that you reached your assignment. Your job is to find three direct competitors of your industry and study them. Then I would want you to search for the top-notch brand in your industry, the best of the best Study it closely what makes it top-notch in the industry from a product or service and marketing point of view? This research will allow you to have a 360-degrees view of your industry. Keep in mind that your goal is always to separate yourself from your direct competitors and to move Toward the top notch standard. I also want you to research on Pinterest.com for different ideas and products from different places Around the world. It doesn't have to be your product or industry. Start collecting and noticing of different ways to take an average product and make it more interesting. Use YouTube to search for the most Instagrammable and shareable products or services. See what makes them look attractive, desirable, delicious and shareable. If you get this right, you have Oreos sold 50 percent of your marketing challenges and in the process You have saved yourself a bunch of serious money that you could put for better use. All right. That's it for this video take care for now And I will see you in the next video.
5. Developing Your Marketing Pitch: Welcome back. Now that you are clear about your customers, your market and your product, it's time to think about The logic and emotions that go behind selling your product and developing it into a short pitch that makes Your customer want to buy it. As we mentioned before, different people value very different things. and the way that we must communicate to them has to be aligned and be tailored toward the things They care about the most. A product pitch could be developed by taking your product features and turning them into benefits Social advantages and relatable stories. For example, if I want to sell a vitamin C product to a caring mother and wife, I have first to highlight The difficulties and undesirable outcomes of catching the flu. Then I could mention that I have discovered and created a healthy product made of organic and Fresh ingredients. This will be a good starting point, but if I stop here, I would only tell her a small portion of The story and doing my product a disservice. My pitch is not compelling and motivating enough to justify someone to buy it yet. Therefore I have to talk about the important benefits of using my product. In this scenario, it might strengthen the immune system of her beloved children and husband Which in returns will protect their bodies against future flu situations and keep them safe. By talking about the benefits of my product, I'm giving her a more convincing reason to try my product. Now I can go one step further and talk to her about the advantages of being safe from flu. An advantage means how can she become better than others, or what is the difference between not using Your product versus using it? In this scenario having a stronger immune system will allow her family to have a stronger body performance comparing To others and to enjoy different outdoor activities in different weather conditions, in contrast Others Might avoid activities and suffer low overall body performance. I have given her a more compelling reason and drew a picture for her to imagine a more robust Stronger performance, flu-free bodies, and a secure future, which at the end will trigger her imagination For different outdoor activities and save money, time, worry and hustle for medical visits. Once she can imagine and fantasize about that, I almost got her attention to open her wallet. Now I have to convince her why to buy my product and not other alternatives by connecting the origin of the product, the special components of the product, the history and heritage of the brand The craftsmen and process that goes into making the product and the values and the mission behind the brand and displaying how they come together to affect the quality and the outcome of the product to her benefit. I also put my product side by side with competitors product and show her the difference in performance and result. Comparing to other solution be its facts, reports, expert testimonials and visual proof to pre-answer Her fears and objections. What we are trying to do is first to identify, highlight, and magnify a problem. Position our product as the best solution, answer objections, and then make customers feel that with using Our product they are in total control of the outcome of the situation. A better way to better sell that confidence and assurance is to work the customer slowly and show them Step by step of how smoothly and easily they can apply your product to the uncontrollable situation Highlight the different application of your product and the very desirable outcome, rather than only Focusing on the product itself. Keep in mind that people buy stuff to achieve specific emotional result, such as being likable or being Seen as creative. Your demonstration should give a sense of control to a customer and highlight that your product is only The tool to uncover their strengths, beauty and creativity. Remember, no one cares about a tool for the sake of the tool. Keep this in mind. When you sell your product, always amplify the problem, which is the stress, then sell the advantage and desirable outcome, which is the release of the problem or the pleasure of the achievement. Let's look at this concept in a simpler perspective. People usually have two different states of mind for buying things. The first is when people are in frustration and panic mode, usually looking for a solution To solve a problem. They are more in logic and analytical mode, looking for specific features and benefits. The other state of mind is when people are seeking desires, they are more On the emotional side and looking for a pleasurable experience or a product with a social advantage Within an affordable budget, both situations are when people are looking for a particular product still with a different outcome. It is your job to understand what category your products belong and highlight the aspect of your product That link to the emotional or logical side of the decision. When a brand is trying to sell a swimming watch, it communicates its features and benefits in the language Of reliable performance and straight logic. However, when a brand sells luxury, it communicates in the language of being equal to a celebrity and socially different, which is pure emotion. Keep in mind that it's your job to educate the customer about the value of your product. Always find an opportunity to highlight the back story of your brand and how it's reflected in the craftsmen Quality and mastery of producing a masterpiece product. Also, shift your focus from only talking about the product itself to talking about the whole pleasurable experience that your product offers. Keep in mind that we don't communicate with different customers with the same benefits and advantages. Otherwise, your pitch does not relate and it becomes the noise. Rather than a connecting story. You should display and position your brand as the expert and the authority of your niche. This could be achieved by mastering your market and product knowledge, understanding the cause of Each problem, then consistently communicating it to educate the customer. Look for the top questions that people usually ask around your topic. You could easily find them on the Answerthepublic.com and Quora.com, or ask your customer service and sales team. They are the front line of your business for customers interaction. The best marketers are the people who served customer in a specific industry for an extended period, or the entrepreneurs who created the product because they understand the ins and outs of the market. They can show expertise and generate trust towards selling their product. If you are not one of them, it's not a big deal. You can always use some research as a starting point. All right. This video will be short and sweet. However, I have collected for you few YouTube videos for product pitches that I think will benefit You more to learn by example rather than listening to me talking about it. The links to the videos will be attached to your assignment section. After you watch the videos, you will have two assignments to accomplish. The first assignment is for each video you watch. I would like you to highlight the product most important features and benefits. You also need to find the selling point. What is it they are selling? Is it comfort, beauty, safety or convenience? Then find what proof have they used to convince a customer into buying the product for the second assignment I would like you to write the three most important features of your product and highlight the most important Benefit of each feature. After that, I want to show the application of your product in a simple step by step process. And finally, I want you to teach me about the differences in using your product V.S other solutions. You can use facts and visual clues, whatever it takes to justify my purchase and make me take Immediate action. All right. That's it for this week. Take your time to go through the examples and I will see you in the next video.
6. Developing Your Marketing and Brand Visuals: Welcome back. In this video, we will learn how to create a visual presentation of your brand that attracts, mirror and sends the right signal to your target customers. There are so many ways to present a brand visually. However, to simplify things, we will group these types of visual presentation images Into three main categories. First is a premium brand image, in this type, your photography should emphasize the high-quality and craftsmanship of your product. Luxury lifestyle and attention to the smallest details. Your images must reflect the heritage and the history of the brand. You also associate and capture your product in high-end luxurious environments. You can see in the following examples how each of the following brands focus their imagery on the craftsmanship and the exclusive lifestyle of their customers. The second representation is the lifestyle brand. You put your effort into capturing a specific group of people in a different environment and places Highlighting how the brand offers coolness and freedom of the lifestyle that your customers Are looking for. As you can notice, that the product is not the star of the image, but the companion and partner In the customer journey, narrating the mood and the story of the customer. Here are a few examples from different brands. Note how they focus on the journey of the customer while keeping the product as a supporting element Of the story. The third brand presentation is a theme based brand presentation. Different people around the world are fans of different themes and genres, a strong and unique brand Need to present itself in a specific theme or style to attract those customers. These themes could be Bohemian style, a Minimal style, a Casual style. A Colorful style. Or a theme that is built around humor. In all of the above styles, what we are trying to do is to sell the dream and the lifestyle that your Customers wish to become. Experiment with different ways of presentations, to find the tone that matches Your style and speaks to your customers. If you sell food related products, focus your visuals on displaying the desirability and deliciousness Of the product. Try shooting your product in different setups and composition. This is what social media is all about. Feed the eye and the mouth will follow. You can see in the following examples a simple and great use of the product colors and different compositions To make it look lovable and desirable. Remember that in every image you capture, you want to sell something. Therefore, when you think about capturing your images, ask yourself, am I selling confidence or luxury? Am I selling a sophisticated design or a trendy style? Is it about a cool lifestyle or I want to sell the desire. Do I want to communicate exclusivity and equality or do I want to project a sense of self-control and freedom? Does my product represent happiness and a brighter future, or do I want to make it about ease and comfort? Or perhaps maybe I just want to capture the style and aesthetics of my brand. All of the above images represent the same products, which is female underwear. Still, for each brand and image, we communicate to the customer with a specific visual language and values using simple but well thought out graphics and photography. Now let's contrast what we learned with the following images. What does the following image sell? What about this one and this one? These images sell the model rather than the product or the story. With time and more experience You find that not every model or environment can properly represent your product and the lifestyle Of your brand, for each brand There are specific models with specific looks and features, unique environments for the story To be told and particular details to be communicated Rolex captures attention to details and luxurious craftsmanship. Swatch highlights the lifestyle of the product, while Cassio highlight the functionality of the product By pushing it to the limit. For your website and catalog images If your product requires a model, then find friendly and neutral models. It is favorable to find different models from different ethnic groups and skin colors. Nowadays, brands rely on social equality and exclusivity to include different customers, and that's How a brand should be. Models need to reflect the look of the ordinary customer of your brand. The images also need to show the product from different views with simple poses and movement Avoid any exaggerated poses or any kind of unrealistic poses that do not relate to the product or hide some product Features and details. The point of the images is to sell the product, not the model. Observe how Levi's beautifully capture the essence of the brand on their website homepage and social media Then, with simple images, they showcase the product images in the product category and product sales page. Nike and Gym Shark as well had done a simple, yet a great job of selling both of the brand's story and the product. If your product does not require a model, then a simple top or three,four-quarter view of the product With a clean studio lighting and a minimal background will do great if your product has a special Features and functionality then prove it visually, the style of your images can be colorful and playful. However, keep the main thing, the main thing, which is a clean presentation of the product. Avoid all the visual distractions that take the viewer's attention away from the product. We also want to avoid any of the distorted views of the product. Such angles provide no information for the shopping customer. Just keep it clean, clear and presentable. If you want to shoot your product with the model and in lifestyle theme for social media Then a close-up shot would be perfect. Just keep in mind the context and the lifestyle of the image. Positioning the product in a story with a matching environment and setting. You can see how MVMT does a nice job in separating between the product imagery on their website and the lifestyle imagery on social media. Bombas also does a nice job of capturing the clarity of the product on their website while telling The story of the brand on their social media. If you have a generic product such as packaged bottles or basic box packaging, you can always find Predesigned mockups sold on the Internet for a low price. You only need to apply your graphics on the top of the mockup. This could be easily done by you or by any person who can use Photoshop on Fiverr.com. If you sell fashionable items, you could use Placeit.net, you can upload your design and it will Automatically be placed on a mock up of a human model. This tool could also be used To generate videos with your design for social media as well. This will save you a ton of money compared to other choices. Now, as a disclaimer, I do not work for any or with any of the above companies. I just find them useful. And I would like to pass them to you. Regardless of what method you use. You should by now have a clear idea regarding how to avoid a weak presentation of your product Such as poor lighting, unclear selling point, and random poses. All right, so let's move to your logo. It is by far one of the most critical elements of your brand. It is the symbol that present your brand and gets to remember and recognized by your customers. Your logo will be everywhere. Therefore, look for the following When you plan to design or redesign your logo, first, your logo should be identifiable and separated From the competition. People will visit an online or local store and need to identify and recognize your logo from a far distance and be able to buy your product. Therefore, always study your competition's logos and try to separate yourself from them. Second, your logo needs to be bold and simple. It will be printed, displayed, viewed and photographed from different distances. Therefore, if you add so many details to your logo, it becomes unscalable, busy, and noisy. A logo is not a complicated illustration, rather an identification and a symbol of the brand. You can see that smart brands keep their logo clear. Try to put your logo in contrast with other logos and notice that only the boldest logos will pop out. Third, your logo needs to communicate the aesthetics of your brand. As you can see that each of these brands is a fashion brand, but only by playing with the font and color choices. Each brand displays a unique attitude, for example, Zara might reflect the image of style and sophistication. H&M is more of a free spirit and Levi's more of a bold and rebellious style, fourth your logo sells The spirit of the brand and not what the brand does. As you can see that the swoosh of Nike communicates movement and action. Disney's handwritten effect with the magic wand logo, tells the story of magic and happiness. None of those logos displays a sports shoe or a Disney character. Once your logo is ready, depending on your business type, apply to all of your social media accounts and brand extensions. There are different tools to help you with your brand logo design and stationary at a low cost Starting From fully automated tools with as little work as possible, moving towards some tools that simplify The interface of designing your graphic and comes with different predesigned templates which will take all The heavy lifting design work from your shoulders and make you focus more on your message. However, if you want to take your brand visual presentation to the next level and got the budget For that level, you can work directly hand in hand with a freelance designer. There are a couple of reliable platforms that can offer you help with that, 99 design, and dribbble. Before you hire any designer, go through their portfolio, then communicate to them your brand vision and what you want. It is also recommended showing them some examples of things you like. And that's where our market research plays an important role in clarifying what you want and communicating your message. And last but not least, let's talk a bit about your product packaging design. When people visit a store to shop for products, they get overwhelmed with the amount of the product Displayed on the shelf. Therefore, their eyes over the years have developed mental shortcuts to look for specific things. First, if they already have a brand name in mind, their eyes will blur and filter out all the noise and look for the logo of that brand. Everything else is noise and distraction. That's why we said your logo needs to be bold and identifiable from a distance. Second, If there is no specific brand name in mind, the eye gets attracted to intense, high saturated Colors contrast colors such as red, yellow, and orange or light against dark and vice versa. You can see the following example, that the less saturated and more dim the color is, the less it will Pop up. And this group, mostly black, white and red, are the dominant colors of the composition. While in this example you can see that bright and saturated colors are very contrasting and will Jump out of the screen. A third factor that attracts the eyes is your packaging size In contrast to the surrounding packaging, the larger or smaller packaging compared to the surrounding Composition, the more noticeable it becomes. The fourth factor the eye looks for is the shape of the packaging Packaging that comes in unique shapes comparing to the ordinary and boxy packaging will attract more attention. Keep in mind that consumers read and research the product carefully. Therefore, you need to make sure that all of the information required for the purchase to happen Presented on the packaging. Eliminate any kind of frustration, especially with today's impatient consumers With No time to consider. They have tons of options out there. The front side, which is the face of the product, needs to be bold, clean and sell the outcome or the desirability of the product. It's the first impression and it must be beautifully designed and attractive. The content of the product needs to be identified and spot from a far distance. Packaging should also display the name of the brand and the information that the customer cares about The most. At first glance, don't treat your packaging as a poster or a magazine page. Keep the front side clean and bold, and use the backside for clarifying and simplifying the extra information. Use your packaging to sell, not to show the component unless the components are designed beautifully and act as the selling point of your entire package. Let's look at the following protein bars packaging and try to analyze them together. The first bar looks clean and bold. Still, if I am just out of the gym and feeling hungry. The packaging does not tell me quickly what the product is or sell the desirability of the product. Unless I already know the brand name, it will be a hard sell. The second one is fantastic. I see the product in its most desirable image. I can have a feeling of what it is and how it looks like. I also see the name of the brand clearly so that I can relate to the credibility of the brand. I can also quickly scan the most important facts that I need to know. The use of red is great, which will make the packaging pop out from a distance. The third bar has the same issue as the first one. It's hard to tell how the product looks and feel, and unless someone recommends this brand I might Just pass by it. The fourth bar is good, but the design is busy. When this gets presented on a Shelf, I bet it would blend with the surrounding product, the dimensions Of the product does not allow the design to be packed with much information. The fifth packaging looks outdated. The brand did not spend the time or effort to study the recent market and upgrade its look to appear Desirable compared to the rest of the competition. The last bar, the brand name is clear, but I still have to spend an extra effort to understand What the product is. The contrast between the image and the background is low. The image of the cookies isn't clear and desirable enough to my eye. Now let's rule out some designs. Number five is out of the game. Numbers two and four seems to look the best in this group. But in the end, I had decided that the winner is number two. Great overall visual presentation. However, we are not done yet. Let's compare our winning packaging side by side against one of the biggest player in the industry Nestlé. The Nesfit packaging is very simple, looks desirable, and it shows the name of the brand. Let's make a test and duplicate that product on the products shelf and try to see it from a distance. Which one you think wins? For me, it's Nesfit, regardless of the power of the brand name. Nesfit design looks the clearest, most readable design from a distance. And that's what we are trying to achieve when we are in a market distinguishing our product on a shelf Side by side with hundreds of different products. However, the more we move toward premium products, we simplify our design and focus more on the quality Of materials and aesthetics of the brand, such as higher quality packaging materials and sophisticated Printing techniques to communicate luxury and increase the perceived value of the brand. In luxury, less is more, which translates to less stuff but better quality. You should always visit the retail store that your product would be displayed at and understand The aesthetics of the store. Always try to distinguish your packaging from the packaging of the competition, be it from A far distance with big contrast differences to a close distance with differences in small details and aesthetics. As you can see that the more you sell low-cost products, the more things tend to rely on simple flat graphics. Your packaging loses its quality and things blend together and it becomes difficult to separate. It is not a good idea to compete for head to head in the retail store unless you have a deep pocket for Marketing or can set up your own stand. You need to advertise for your product and then probably send your customers to a retail store For a convenient pick up. Otherwise, compare it to a larger brand with an unlimited marketing budget. Your chance of Winning might be minimal, if not zero, and that's why direct to consumer marketing through your website Is the best way to go as a small business. We will talk about that in the next video. Another thing to consider with your packaging design is that different people buy a product For different reasons. Therefore, if you're packaging and presentation are just so- so, then you give the customer no other Reason to choose but to compete on price. However, if you're packaging design is creative for a specific group of people with specific occasions and needs, then you give people a reason to buy your product that helps them achieve a specific outcome. What is suitable to buy for a lover or a gift for going out on a date differs from what is suitable To gift your family members or your colleague. Always ask yourself, how can I make my product offering fits and attract a specific need, outcome or desire? Keep in mind that to build a strong brand, you don't need as many products as you might think. You can always play with different themes of your packaging to widen your product line and make it Look fresh and interesting. Also, think about how consumers buy your product. Starting from an entry-level where people want to give Your a product a test, moving toward maybe your product is becoming a habit. Finally, let's buy a lot and save ourselves some money. You should also think about how customers will consume your products. Some might eat it on the go, while others like to eat it with friends while watching a movie In the theater and others like to keep it aside on the office table. Some will store it for later use and others will just gift it. All right. That might be a lot to think about, but if you are just starting out, you don't have to worry about So many things. Keep everything that we talk about in the back of your mind for later use and do not overwhelm yourself. Take it one step at a time. For now, give an extra effort to personalize your packaging. It's the first physical interaction between your brand and your customer. Do not make it feel generic. Make it the best first impression possible. You can always find affordable and easy ways to make your packaging looks unique, personalized and beautiful. Treat it as a personal gift, not as a shipping box. All right. We have gone through a lot of information and you might need to have some rest. But before you go, here's your assignment for this week. I would like you to pick a product. It could be your product or you could find a random product on Alibaba.com Then I would like it to find and visually research four unique brands that come with four distinct looks and aesthetics of the same product category. Then I would want you to pick one brand's style that fits your brand, break it down and start learning and emulating it. Start by copying and then slowly evolve it into your brand style. You might find that customers have gotten used to a certain visual language associated With a specific brand aesthetics, which will make it easy for the customer to identify the perceived and expected value Of the brand. Therefore, know what you want to communicate, present it right and your customer will mostly react. It is only a matter of perception. All right. Take care for now. And have a rest, I will see you in the next video.
7. Developing Your Marketing Distribution And Funnels: Hey there, welcome back. In this video, we will learn how to market, distribute and offer your product, your customers. Then learn how to design some sales funnels and start generating some revenue. I will prove to you that a six year old smart kid with a lemonade stand knows how to market and sell Better than many small business owners and sophisticated marketers, for a business to generate sales It requires an attractive product, which we already have talked about. This product has to be offered at the perfect timing Selling a cold lemonade in the winter will not be an easy sell. Your lemonade needs to be displayed in a space that is your lemonade stand. This space job needs to be functional and easy to access for the customer. The lemonade stand needs to be set up on top of a secured and trusted platform in an area With foot traffic. Once we have the store and the product locked in place, you need to communicate your marketing message Which means you need marketing distribution channels. They need to be visible and effective, which means it needs to be large enough or loud enough to be Visible by the customers. Using your marketing distribution channel, you communicate your marketing and branding message With offers and marketing materials to make your brand stand out and attract potential customers. The more you invest in the quality of your communication and perceived value of your business The more you make it difficult for others to compete with you. That's what the business is all about. Be it small or large You need to have a platform, a store, a marketing distribution channel and marketing message. They work hand in hand together to drive awareness and sell your product. It is that simple! The platform could be a specific street, a marketplace or a shopping mall. It could be a mega retail store such as Walmart or an online marketplace such as Amazon. Each market has its rules and regulation and sell products to a specific group of customer with Particular needs and price points such as B2B or different B2C products and services. The platform could also be the back-end provider of your self-hosted domain website Such as Shopify and WordPress. For the store, it could be a brick and mortar store. A small stand in the marketplace, a pop shop, or a truck, or it could be hosted online in a marketplace. Each platform has its own way of displaying products and services. And before you market your business, you must get familiar with the tool which mostly is taught for Free by the platform or on YouTube. And lastly, you can build your branded e-commerce store. For the marketing distribution channel It is the method of how you will attract clients to your business. This could be reached through trade shows, public speaking social media both organic and paid Third-Party listing marketplace such as the Yelp.com. It could also be through your podcast or advertising on someone's podcast. and lastly, the best way for marketing is through word of mouth. Okay, so now that you have a general idea about the basics let's dive a little deeper and the more specific Let's start by talking about your offer. Let's assume that you sell T-shirts and you have a lot of inventory that you are unable to sell or there is no demand toward your products. It's most likely because you don't package your product in an attractive offer when you bundle Your product into a specific offer that is designed toward a specific group of people, you build A halo effect around your product and it becomes a more targeted offer rather than a single product. This will put the customer in a hunting mode for a deal. They will take advantage and take it or leave it without an offer your product Is just an item on the restaurant menu. People need to go through the menu slowly to decide. Sometimes they might just get lazy to go through the menu at all. But when you bundled into an offer, you provide them with a shortcut. And that's what most of the time their eyes are scanning for a juicy deal. Small businesses can introduce different offers, we design the first group of offers as an introductory To the brand. They will help you gain new customers and get them into your brand universe. They are useful if you want to build social proof around your new brand. However, such offers are not profitable. They are meant to break-even or lose some money. Therefore, they need to be limited for a short period of time, such as the first months of Starting your new business Offers Like buy one, get one for free or buy one product. Get a complimentary product for free. Free trials and free bonuses are all great offers to break the ice and kick off your business Without devaluing the original price and the image of your brand. The second group of offers is designed to upsell and cross-sell The customer into more profitable package and experience, this group of offers are better offered to A customer who already tried our products and services. The trust is already established for a larger investment. The third group of offers are a discount offers. They can be presented at a specific price for a single product or a deep discount price for The entire store or collection. Keep in mind that discounts offer could also be presented in a tire discount method. The more the customer buys, the more they can save, which also means the more you can liquidate Your inventory and turn it into cash. Keep in mind that we only offer a discount at the beginning of starting a new business to build Social reviews or to try a product pre-launch and see if there is a demand for the product or we can offer Them on a specific event and occasions. You shouldn't be offering discount all time. This will devalue your brand image and your customer will get into the habit of waiting for your discounts. You should also think, if possible, of your business as a leader and the partner of the community If your product makes sense to be offered at a special discount for military, teachers, and students. Such groups contribute to your community and rewarding their effort tend to be profitable for the brand In terms of stronger social image and sales revenue. Always consider the risk factor of your offer from your customers point of view, especially If the trust is not established yet. Most customers don't like to take the risk, that's just the nature of today's market it will take as offer comes with a risk free guarantee. It highlights the value of the savings It removes any financial barriers, if there is any, by breaking the cost into smaller pieces or offering Other financing options. It also focuses on selling the outcome of the product rather than the product itself. In this case, having great comfort and sleep for a small monetary value, always stack all your Offer components together to remind the customer and highlight the overall value of the offer. Make them feel that it's a no brainer deal. Also, let them understand that you are there to serve them by phone, email and live chat. Before and after the sale. You can compare your offer to your competitors offer side by side to show the value and saving For your offer. Only present facts No badmouthing or misrepresentation of the competitors offer or you get yourself into legal troubles. It's always a deal that makes the most sense to the customer is the deal that wins the most. Not the cheapest. But the best, that requires knowing what your customers care about the most from your Pre-marketing research phase. As we said, a great offer comes with a sweet and no brainer deal Then add some fire to it with a short deadline which causes stress and the fear of missing out and then Place a stress reliever, which is a call to action such as Shop Now or get it now. Remember that we normally do such offers when we want to sell left inventories for seasonal products or meet our sales projections. However, if your product is not selling even with offers, then people might not be interested In your product. Increasing the discount is not the answer. You probably need to go back to the research phase and understand your customers needs, wants and desires. All right, so you got your offer in place. How do you communicate and distribute it? It's simple. Just place it in front of your customers' eyes. In the past, businesses used to send mail promotions or send out flyers with coupons and special offers. People can receive coupons at the store and once you buy, they will give you more coupons to come back For more. However, nowadays the distribution channel has changed, but the logic hasn't. While you are scrolling on your Instagram or Facebook and having some fun or being bored, some promotions Will pop up in front of your eyes. If they are relatable to you, you might click on the image and that's how they get your attention and make you buy. Unlike the content that we post on our social media as a brand building content, we also leverage Social media to advertise our offers. However, our advertising content is a direct offer. This offer will include a clear and bold image that sell the outcome of the product with An irresistible offer, a simple and clear product benefits copy, and a clear call to action, the job of the ads creative Is to sell the click, not the selling of the product. Once the person clicks on the ad, then they will be redirected to a landing page that mirrors the same Offers and creatives of the ads. A landing page is not a complete website. It's a sales page. And it must start with what the customers cares about the most, which are the offer the benefits of the offer, social proof if available, and answering objections. Landing page visitors Are people who come to your page from a Google search or social media ads, and they are looking for Something specific in the shortest period, someone who is looking for plumbing service, they probably Need to know if you are available in their area and how they can contact you. Therefore, your call to action and your critical info need to be bold and highlighted, the sales page Does not have to be as long as this one. But if you decided to explain more, there is no harm in that. As long as you keep that essential info and repeat the most critical call to action. Sometimes having a testimonial is good, but it's not always the case if you don't have any Don't stress about it. People typically care about what you can do for them, the quality and the price of the service more than the testimonial. In this landing page example, you can see that it's visually busy for someone Who is looking for an immediate solution. It's a website rather than a specific one page landing page. I also have to go through filling a form rather than emphasizing on making sure that they can serve My area with a bold and clear call to action. In this other example, the hair salon did a good job of highlighting the address and call to action. However, the image looks generic, not inviting and doesn't reflect the store experience. Here, I might change this one large image with a few smaller but more visually rich images that captures The experience inside the store rather than the exterior of the space. Since there is nothing iconic about it, this part of the introduction is nice. If I want to learn a little about the brand, coming down to the price table, which is excellent The use of call to action is excellent as well. I will probably increase the font size a bit in this area to make things bolder and clearer. The staff background story is great to connect the store with the customer emotionally. I would probably add a few of each stylist work portfolio of previous customer if each has a specific Style to tie the information back to the customer's self-interest. Here's a good use for the call to action. At the end of this page, I would probably remove the the barber section because I don't want to confuse The customer with people who are looking for a job. I would create a different landing page that is designed specially to talk about the culture, requirement and the hiring process of the place. Finally, need to fix the alignment of the icons to make things look right and legit. I would also add an Instagram images feed to show up to date haircuts and event from the store. That's it! When you are selling a physical product, your Landing Page is your product sales pitch. Your products need to be displayed from each angle. Your photography should be crisp and clean. Your images are mostly doing the selling your price need to be clearly and precisely shown. If there are any extra cost you need to highlight them, you should also display your call to action and your shipping and risk free guarantees. If a product's highly depends on visuals, then adding an Instagram feed with beautifully taken photographs Will allow the customer to check the product with different models and relate to their lifestyle and body. This will ease the buying decision. You should also display your product features and benefits, and lastly, your other related products That relate to this specific product category. If you sell more of an expensive product, then you need to invest more in your visual presentation To increase the perceived value and justify for the price. Keep in mind that the more expensive your product is, the more you need to rely on social proof To minimize the risk in the customer's eyes. Your sales pitch needs to act as a physical store experience, but done online. If the average cart value of your product is over $100 or sometimes less You might Need to consider financing most of the time For budget customers spending money at once becomes a barrier. Don't forget to highlight and stack all the other components together to reflect the awesome Overall value of the offer. The higher the price of your product and complexity are, the more you need to justify the price. By telling the story of the product and walking the customer through the details of the product In a longer format. That includes talking about the origin of the product, how other people are delighted and satisfied With the product, talking about each benefit separately through the perspective of precision and mastery. If any demonstration is required, then videos can serve better to explain. Your copy needs to be conversational and easy to understand with beautiful images That sell a specific point. The most important thing comes to your customer's mind after they like your offer What happens if things don't go right? Which is your assurance of the risk free guarantee Most of the time this will make or break the deal. Nowadays, many small businesses partner up with a charity organization and will highlight that On The sales page as a reminder that the customer Purchase is a contribution which might sometimes make the customer buy from this brand Rather than other brands. But this is not always the case. Always keep your focus on what matters to the customer the most, which is what it is they are buying Its benefits and a clear Q&A section that answers all the objections that customers Might come up with, at the end of the page Don't forget to highlight support with the phone number and live chat. This proves you are not just an online store, but a premium brand. This page is a long sales page to justify the value of the price. If you are starting a small business, you don't have to worry about all of that fancy stuff At the beginning of your journey. A simple landing page with clear images of the product and the price will do the job. Sign up for a financing partner such as a Affirm.com if possible. If you can include free shipping into your offer, do it. If you cannot, then mention it separately. However, you need a money-back guarantee, especially if there is no trust established Yet. Your fulfillment date and shipping information need to be clear. Always add a few extra days in case things go wrong. If your product is a product depends mostly on its function to sell, then you can show the ease of Using the product in one video or multiple images. I prefer one clear and short video. Don't forget to mention the features and specification of your product. No confusion. You don't want to sell one thing and the customer expect to receive something else. If you are selling on Amazon.com or other platforms, then you need to understand that you are competing With hundreds of different suppliers. Therefore, your images must be the clearest, most desirable image in your category. That's what the customer sees first. Then you must skip all the noisy fluff and unrelated images and highlight what the customer cares about The most. Add some lifestyle images and show a different application of the product. If your product has special ingredients or components, it's preferable to do A longe sales page talking through the benefits of using the product. Keep your copy understandable, short, relevant and valuable. No fluff talk. This will make the customer spend more time with your sales page and appreciate your value in contrast With other suppliers. All right. We have gone through different landing pages. The main point to focus on from a customer perspective on landing page are what is it that I'm buying? How does it work? What are the benefits? and what can I do with it? How does it differ from other solutions? How did it work for others? and what if it doesn't work for me? What is your complete final offer? How will you make it possible for me to buy it? All right. So let's now go back to our ads and talk about how do we distribute and target people to make them See our ads in the first place. Well, this is done through Facebook business ad manager and is separated from your Facebook or Instagram Ordinary account in this course. We will not talk deeply about all the details of Facebook ad manager. It will take hours and bore you to death. However, I promise you I will show enough information to know how things work to kick off your project and move things forward. Later, you can learn more or hire professional to scale your marketing effort. The function of the Facebook ad for business is to work for hand in hand with the business to accomplish Specific revenue goals. Therefore, there are four main objectives to focus on first, engage with our current or new customers Second prospects new and interested clients. Third, find and sell to online shoppers, and fourth invite foot traffic to our store. This is how you can leverage both Facebook and Instagram together since they share the same platform. However, Facebook does not promise you to make a sale. It just tells you they have massive data about a different group of people with specific interests Location and behaviors who they might predict will take a specific action toward your business. Relying on data in the past to predict future action. How Facebook targets people is first through collecting data we send to Facebook through our profile Permitting Facebook to access to our mobile device, location and our past behaviors. It also collects information from pages we like on Facebook, those data make Facebook very knowledgeable About us. Google does the same. But since Google is a search engine and a discovery platform, it targets people according to keywords They enter in the search bar or a specific YouTube channel and videos with specific topics and interests. Google can also target people who display ads on partner websites. They work with Google and get a small portion of the advertising profit. In short, Facebook and Google own the attention of people and the traffic on the Internet and that's What makes them a powerful marketing distribution channel For most businesses, with no traffic There are no sales and with no sales There is no business. All right, but how do those platforms help a small business to predict and find customer to buy their Products or become a lead? Well, through a small code that you can easily set-up on your website called a pixel for Facebook or a Google conversion tracking tag, this code or pixel has different attributes called events. And those events describe a specific action someone takes on your website. For example, when somebody buys eyeglasses on your website, this event will fire and send information To Facebook. The user number AD111 has bought a pair of eyeglasses from a store, eyeglasses .com with a total cart value Of $35. Therefore, tag that is user as an online shopper and eyeglass buyer. Of course, that's only a simple way of talking about it. There are millions of attributes and data points to be considered. But I think you get the point. Facebook is a huge data processing center. It combines all the data that come from all the pixels on different websites, processes it with an AI learning machine and then group users into buckets with attributes and behavior. Therefore, when a business assign a campaign goal, the AI machine will try to predict the information Of your ad. Then they will assign your ad to a specific customers bucket and that's how it tries to find customers and target them with your ads. When we are starting and we have no previous data such as customers lists, we choose the right objective Which is in this case to sell a product online. It's called Conversion, which tells Facebook to find me online buyers, with the right event, which is a purchase. And then we start by targeting people according to interests and behaviors. This will display our ad for the first time in front of them. This first step, we call it targeting a cold audience, a group of unfamiliar people who never heard Of our brand but share previous buying behaviors. When those regular buyers see our ads and click, they will go to our landing page and probably Have a look, scroll and leave. That's fine. Our goal is to hook them into our marketing system. Now we can create a new audience for the people who visit our website, then re-target to them With different creatives and offers. and hopefully some will buy Over time Facebook will collect enough information and learn more about the customers who buy from our business. It's at this moment when you can leverage Facebook lookalike audience to create, fined and target new people Similar to your previous customers. And at this level, Facebook ad will become scalable and unstoppable. Keep in mind that we have three key types of audiences, cold audience unaware of our brand and a hot audience familiar and ready to buy, everyone in between is called a warm audience, an audience In the research and consideration mode and need to be convinced. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube campaigns work on a hierarchical level, starting from the campaign objective Which is driving traffic to your brick and mortar store, making an online sale or collecting a lead. Then we get to the ad set level, at this level we choose our audience. Each group of audiences could be grouped into a separate ad set. For example, influencers ad set, magazines ad set for an audience size with at least 500K to 1 Million People. You can also set up a separate website Visitor ad set for the retargeting purpose, all under one campaign Which is making a sale. And finally, we get to the ads, which are the creative and the ofter they can be images or videos For each ad set You can have as many creative and offers as you want. They just need to be relative to the group of customers you have chosen on the ad set level. Remember, we don't talk to all the people with the same language. Your creative Could be a simple copy of your product features and benefits with different images and short Demonstrative videos. It could be a direct and limited time offer. It could be a gallery display each of your product and services separately, or customers testimonials To highlight the quality of your product and service. You find that most of the time we rely on attracting the customer with great visuals and juicy offers Re-market to them with more narrative talking about the value of your product and answer objection Then within a few days, we re-target them with a direct and irresistible offer, your ads creative could be simply Shot with your iPhone and edited with a simple drag and drop tools, which is simple to do if you are On a budget. Keep in mind that we want to test as many as creative as possible and allow Facebook algorithm Over time to learn which ads creative perform the best. You can see how different brands display tens, if not hundreds of creative with slight changes and variations. All right, so how do we leverage Facebook ads For your business and start generating some revenue. And the answer is simple, if you know what your objectives are, if you are a local business, then You want to attract people around your area and invite them to your store, leverage geo-targeting To target nearby people with direct offers they can claim at your store. If you have an online store, then you want to drive, purchase, to your website with eye-grabbing creatives Then retarget the same people with different offers to bring them back to your sales page and complete the purchase. Another way you can do it is to start with video ads. Since Facebook is encouraging video ads and they are cheaper than conversion ads at the moment, then Re-target the people who watched your videos with conversion ads to drive them to your store for a purchase or to get them into your retargeting sequence. If you sell a service, you could choose a traffic objective to drive traffic to a detailed blog post Around a specific solution or problem, your customers care about on your website. The retargeted, the people who visit your post with the lead generation objective. Once they click, they will be redirected to a landing page with an opt-in form to be contacted by your Sales team. Being able to understand those simple steps would make you capable of understanding a more Advanced concept, which is a marketing and sales funnel. A funnel is the steps and the process that a stranger has to go through to make a purchase and become a customer. The less expensive your product is, the shorter and fewer steps your customer requires taking and the more expensive and premium your product is, the more steps your customer need to go through and the more information you need to provide to build trust and allow for the purchase to happen. You just have to make sure that the cost of acquiring the customer is lesser than the value of the purchase. Bringing a customer to a business and making a sale matters the most to any business. It is the power to generate demand which will make you a powerful marketer, especially at The beginning stage when a business has no previous social record with a very limited budget. This puts you in a position to be very strategic and decisive on what you want to achieve, how to allocate Your budget and to make your current investment pays a lot more later. Once the demand is generated and the marketing systems are in place, everything else become easier, scalable and more profitable. Let's look at a few examples. With local businesses You start by listing your business on Google local businesses and you present your business with All the required information with the best images possible. You also need to list your business on marketplaces such as Yelp.com Those two tactics will provide you with free traffic and social proof later on. If you are just starting out, only listing your site organically to be discovered is not enough. We will advertise on those platforms for pay per click, be on the top of the search list and generate first visits. Later on We will do a superb job to serve our customers and achieve awesome reviews. We will also use our social media feed Instagram or in your case, might be Twitter to Display The overall experience around our brand lifestyle, just teasing no selling. Every day we will be active and share some Livestream behind the scene and lifestyle of the brand To look active and legit. At the same time, it's a good idea to bring more foot traffic and advertise on Facebook and Instagram For special offers for the surrounding area. A takeaway or special in-store happy hour offers will do great, on the ground We will offer free samples and display large and clear, irresistible, direct offers. This might not be profitable at the beginning, but as long as you break-even or take a small loss This should be fine. It must be a part of your marketing budget and plan. You need to break the ice and allow people to try the brand. You will also invite a few micro-influencers with at least 20K followers to your store For a shout-out or review some accept for free and some for a small fee. Still, the exposure will be great if they are related and connected with your community. This will bring their followers to your business, in the store And after you have done a superb job, you will offer a small treaty as a sign of generosity and give Your customer loyalty stamp card and coupon codes to encourage them to come back and ask for a social share With a special hashtag #yourbusinessname. If you also have followed my advice about developing a desirable and shareable product, people will Naturally take a photo and share it. Keep in mind that every store needs to have a selling point. This selling point would make people visit, refer friends and come back later. Some people visit the store because of its unique and well-made products. Some because of the mood of the place, others because of the location of the place, some because of The unique service and experience and others because of the history, heritage and mystery of the brand Your selling points should be a wow factor and becomes a kind of a desire or dream for someone to Fulfill. When they look at other people pictures of your place or your product images Their reaction should be, I want to be a part of that as well. Once they come to your store, they take a few pictures of themselves and sometimes with the brand creator and share it on social media to show that they also had the same awesome experience. Everything we are trying to do is to make your business desirable and make customers come right to you Instead of them just walking and looking for a place in the mall. I want them to ignore everything else and be pre-programmed to come to your place. We are also trying to get rid of the empty place effect when your business is empty Very few people will want to get in, but when there are some people inside, it feels like A substantial business and more people want to get in. We as a human are social creatures. We depend on other people's and our perception to decide. This idea works well for large and small businesses. People will attract more people and the cycle keeps growing. If we look at the entire system in a simple illustration, we begin by sending foot traffic to our store Be it paid or organic method. Then at the store, we give free samples and display direct offers. Then we do a great job with serving our customers. We give them a simple treaty along with loyalty cards and coupons to bring them back and ask them politely For social shares and reviews, which will spread the word and bring more customers to our store Which with time will minimize our advertising cost and build a loyal customer base. Well, how do I know this system worked? Because businesses use it all the time to start or grow a business and it works. Sometimes your business might require for people to try out your program, then convert them into customers. You can offer them a free one week or a single time trial or just straight to a special direct offer With a money back guarantee. Keep in mind that you don't have to use all the tactics we talked about, use what makes sense To your business and fit your budget. One thing to keep in mind is that you need to generate awareness and drive traffic. You also need to find a way for customer to keep coming back and spread the word. Sometimes you need to distribute your product as a wholesaler or sell to different businesses. We call it B2B business to business, unlike B2C, which is direct to consumers, which relies on retail and online store strategies, in B2B and wholesale You focus your marketing efforts on participating in trade shows, distributors, and buyers visite Those places learn about the latest product and look for suitable deals. You just need to make sure that you are joining the right trade-show of your product category. Your job at the trade show is to meet many buyers and get to know them, learn what they need and their requirements. Usually, in trade shows, people are not there to buy immediately, rather is to exchange business cards and for you to gather their contact information, let them know that you can serve them and would love to Follow up with them. Once that trade show is done, follow up immediately. Ask if they are still interested and looking for a solution and ask for a short productive meeting If possible. Tell them you have gathered information regarding their needs and would love to get to know them more and to learn about the requirements and more details. Once you meet, get to understand Their wants in details and ask if they are ready for a small commitment and a deal. Once the deal is done, serve well and maintain the relationship so they would come back and buy more In B2B deals Make sure to understand the dynamics between the person whom you are negotiating and their boss. They don't want to be blamed for their purchase or get fired. Your job is to work hand in hand as a consultant, more than a seller, and provide helpful information Which makes their lives easier. And if you have done a wonderful job, they will do the selling to their boss on behalf of you For their benefit. You also need to work with specific timeline and budget and be able to fulfill their order according To their quality standard. No mistakes or delays. That's how the corporate world works. If they cannot buy from you, it's not personal. You just have to understand the dynamics and work with them to achieve a deal. If you wish to sell to retail stores, be it online or offline, you need to hire a sales team Along with marketing materials such as your products catalog that mainly displays your product The wholesale price and suggested retail price, along with a short background story of your brand. The sales team normally works on a sales commission along with a basic salary. If you are starting out, you can do it yourself. Just visit The store first and see how it looks, what products do they sell, the overall presentation style and how do your products fits within? Keep in mind that those stores want to make money and they think in terms of opportunity cost. So if your product sales better with a higher margin than other products, then they would love to Display your product. So by all means, don't be shy from selling. Once you are in the store, ask the store manager or staff member if you could reach the person responsible for the buying and then ask for the name of the staff Who provided you with the information so you could mention them later when contacting the store owner or buyer. Just be nice and friendly about it. If they resist, just smile and move on. One thing to keep in mind that you don't want to pitch or display your products while they are busy At the store, they have no time or mood to listen. Once you get the contact information, reach out by an email along with the name of the person Who gave you the info A short and sweet introduction message mention why you chose their store, why your product from Style, function, and price point along with your product catalog. and lastly, ask to schedule 15 minutes on a specific day. And finally, don't forget to hit send. That's it! If they like your work, they might want to meet with you for further conversation. Repeat the same process for reaching more small boutiques and stores, start small and local Then grow slowly. All right. So let's talk a little about online business, for an online product We are looking for a product different from what at a general retail store, such a product We can generate a story and buzz around it. If the product is ordinary and people can buy it from Amazon, then there is no reason To pay a premium price for your product. We will take that product and partner up with different micro-influencers and we will work with All of them together to generate momentum around the brand. The way to find influencers is just to research for influencers around your industry that are open for Collaboration and reaching out to them. Offer a free example, for a shutout. Some might require a small payment for the shooting and editing fees. If you want a more of a direct and secured method, you can find platforms that connect you directly With influencers and manage all the deliverables and payments through the platform. Make sure when you work with influencers to send their audience to a sales page with a special offer. However, once people buy your product, you need to increase the profit and average current value of The transaction. Therefore, you need to cross-sell complementary products or Upsell to a larger quantity of The same product for discounted price. You can also offer free shipping on specific cart value. You will be amazed at how many people will take the upsell to avoid the shipping costs. Upselling and cross-selling have to do with bundling your product into a deal that is perceived as a no brainer To the customer, but more profitable to you since the cost of the entire offer will be lower than Its perceived value. To better understand the concept of why we should upscale and cross-sell is to think of your sales In terms of margins. A margin is how much money is left after you cover your manufacturing costs You also need to consider that sometimes your retail price might be discounted at 25% To 35%, which in this scenario leaves you with $12 as a profit margin. But we are not done yet. Nowadays, marketing is getting more and more expensive. So let's imagine that the cost of acquiring a new customer on average is $9. That would leave you with $3 as profit. And after paying all of your taxes and credit card transaction fees, you will be left with almost nothing. It doesn't even worth it to start a business. Therefore, you want at the moment of the purchase and the customer is already excited to up-sell or Cross-sell, which will increase the average cash value to $45 dollars, and that will leave you With $18 as profit, which is so much better than $3 with spending the same Amount of money. On acquiring the customer, you make six times the profit. Not every customer will buy the upsell, but some will and they will add up to the bottom line of Your total profit. When the sale is made and you fulfilled your product, you need to send your customer request for review For future discount or reward. And if you did a great job and your product is great, the customer would be more than happy to leave you a review. You will also ask your customer, if possible, to take a snapshot of your product and send it to you So you can with their permission, post on your social media and tag them, this is how you gain Social proof and drive more traffic. Now, let's look at the complete panel. You first acquire customers Through Social media, be it paid, organic, or influencers, and you send them to a product page where you have An offer, then you send them to upsell or cross-sell and then finally to the checkout, after a period of time You will send an email with coupons or gift cards for reviews and social share. Now, let's take the same concept and scale it. First, you will work with Facebook and Instagram ads to send traffic to your website. You'll also work with YouTube influencers to review and talk about your product. You also work with bloggers to tell the story of your brand and products. And the way you pay bloggers and influencers is through an affiliate program where they get paid on A certain amount of money for the production and shut out and a small percentage commission on Every sale they make. They have to send people to your product page. And before visitor leave, you will capture that email for a one time deep discount deal. Once they opt-in your list, they will become a part of an automated email series. It starts by offering them the discount code, then slowly introducing them to your brand story and your product line. This could be achieved easily with email marketing software such as Klaviyo It comes with a pre-setup automated email sequence and visual templates besides the email sequence They will become a part of our retargeting sequence, which will follow them with different offers and creatives highlighting the benefit of your product. Those creative need to be the outcome of your research for what people are struggling with Regarding products similar to yours. It's a Q&A but done on social media. You are also going to retarget them on YouTube and Google, sending them to different offers and products On your website. You become everywhere and they have become a part of your brand universe. You can show them whatever you want, send them whatever you want and engage them however you like As long as it will get them to make the purchase. Let's look again at the system. We first need to bring people to our sales page through organic, paid, and an affiliate method Then send them to our product page, collect their email address, and then retarget them with different offers. If they buy, we upsell and cross-sell. If they don't, they head straight to the checkout. We follow up with an email of reviews and social share, which in return will create More trust in our brand and buzz around our product. And the loop keep repeating. The more we spend on marketing, the larger your business grows. That's a complete marketing system in a nutshell. I know that you might be itching your head and feeling a bit overwhelmed. Don't worry about all the complexity. You don't have to set up an entire system. Still, you have to understand how things work. If you are just starting, you just have to generate awareness and make some sales. You need to have a site to host your product and a place where you can get customers. To make things simpler If you are starting a business, let's go together through some simple funnels. How about that? You can host your product on e-commerce website as simple as Shopify. Then you can connect your store to a simple tool, which allows you to sell directly From your social media livestream. If you feel comfortable to sell on a live cam or hire someone to be a brand ambassador This will become very convenient. People only need to leave a comment and the purchase will automatically happen. You just have to focus on selling. Many small businesses do it that way at the beginning of their journey and it works. The second method is to start from an engaging social media account be it on Instagram, Snapchat or Tiktok, depending on the type, age, and style of your customers Being active, showcasing behind the scene, teasing your audience with a beautiful presentation of Your product then mention your store location in your profile. No website or any funnel system are required. The whole point is to be in front of customers and make it desirable for them to come over to your store. Another way that works very well is to start a project on Indiegogo, create Facebook ads and send traffic To the Indiegogo landing page. You can also work with a few bloggers and send their audience to support and pledge for Your discounted offer. It's a great way to market your product. If you don't want to invest in building a complete e-commerce website, you can host your product on A platform such as Amazon, then advertise inside the platform for keywords that people search around Your product also bring traffic from outside Amazon such as Facebook. Still, instead of sending them to Amazon, send them to a simple one-page Shopify store to collect Their information first in exchange for small gifts such as a deep discount or free trial, and let Amazon Fulfill the order. This will allow you to capture the email information of the customer to send them different offers and also get them Into your retargeting system. Another strategy is to start on a platform and advertise on that platform to try your product and offering and slowly take what works best and develop it into an entire brand. The whole point of marketing be it digital or traditional, is this, attract or target A group of people that fit your product and service, get close to them and deliver value, in the process Pitch your product and make a sale. Keep in mind that all of your work should lead to great customer service, customers loyalty and a spread of word of mouth. If not all your hard work and effort goes to waste. It's as simple as that. All right. That was a long video. If you need to go back and watch it over again, then by all means, please do that. This is the most crucial video in this entire series. Now, we have come to your assigment. I would like you to fool yourself into buying a product, search for whatever product you like. Then I want you to notice what links did you click and why. How did you do the background research, which websites you research while doing the research? What offer made the most sense to you and why? How does the brand make itself looks credible? How did they follow up with you? What is the retargeting strategy and content? Can you map down the funnel from start to finish? Once you are done I would like you to plan your go to market strategy. How are you going to attract customers and sell your product? From today going on marketing and selling is a no wishy-washy job anymore. It's your job as a marketer to find customers and generate demand. Your marketing should not depend on your mood, whether it's good or bad or in a
8. Building Value Around Your Brand: Welcome back. In this video, we will talk about pricing and how you can slowly increase your prices by creating value. One of the most difficulties that I have seen with my clients, especially at the beginning Of their business journey is that they have a weak sense of business and numbers. They serve from a place of generosity with their products and offering rather than thinking In terms of business. They put the best ingredients and components inside the product, but then sell it from a place of desperation Which might lead them to run out of money. And sadly, sometimes if they insist on the same strategy to go out of business, each product and service Quality has a price tag and the customer expects to pay the right price for the benefits and perceived value of the product. In business, there is no free lunch. Start a business or start a charity. Just make a decision. Most of starting entrepreneurs devalue their expertise and the skills they bring to the table and that sometimes comes from having an employee mindset rather than a skillful business person. Sometimes the problem relies on that They compare and compete with large distributors, which makes them think it's only about the price. Sometimes it's their lack of skills to sell and present which leads to a lack of self-confidence and devaluing their work. In this video, we will solve those problems and develop a new mindset. When you sell a bouquet you did not just take the flowers out of a garden and sell them to the customer. It took your years of experience, time, effort and attention to details to create such a beautiful creation. Your customers cannot make such a beautiful thing and that why they buy it from you in the first place. They are not buying flowers. They are buying a creation. Something beautiful to look at, to give and share with their beloved. It makes them feel good. It makes them feel appreciated. That's your selling point and it's called perceived value. However, if you cannot sell your product at a premium price, that's a problem with the overall Presentation of the product or you are selling in the wrong market to the wrong customer or your price is too low That the premium customer does not even consider it as a premium product. Let's fix all of that. First to keep our business healthy and to run. We want to make sure we are not losing money on the sales we make. The bottom line of business is net profit and is not your revenue or your number of sales. Therefore, you've got to sit down and calculate the cost of producing your product Plus your labor cost. Even if you are the one who is producing the product, treat yourself as an employee and find The average Labor cost and calculate it into your product cost. I have a bonus video for you that talks about that in details It will be your next video for now Stick with me. Let's look at small example. If the cost of making your product is $10 per piece, then the price that your retail customer Will pay need to be multiplied by a factor of at least three to five times as a mark up Of your manufacturing cost So your product would be sold at $50 at the retail store and your wholesale buyers Will get it from you for a wholesale price of $25. If you are selling your product direct to consumer through your online store, you will have Healthy Profit margins which allow you to spend more on acquiring your customer and keeping your business profitable Healthy and running. Make sure that the cost per making a sale does not exceed your profit margin. If so, it's not a profitable product, market, offer, or a business model. It's a good starting point to do market research of competitive product and have a feeling of how much The customer is willing to pay for such a product category. You don't have to be the cheapest. Many people love to shop for quality over price. However, the price needs to be justifiable by the quality and and overall presentation of the product. Please do not project your current financial situation. If It is difficult on behalf of someone's else Quality of choice. You are not the customer. Create products for the people who can afford quality stuff and sell it to them. However, since we are not selling a luxury product for the people who do not care about money We need to be reasonable and meet a specific price range. If your margins are not healthy compared to the market price, you got two options: First, go back to your production facility and optimize your production cost or outsource your product Manufacturing to a trusted manufacturer. This will cut your fixed and overhead costs and make you focus On the marketing aspects of your business, the second choice is niche in your product toward A more specific group of people with more specific needs to be met. This might shrink your market size, but will increase your price in return will increase your profit When we price a product, especially if it's news the market. We run a market test and do a price test for three months, less or more. However, for now, don't be stuck on pricing your product. Start from a market price, then adjust. There is so much more to be considered for a purchase to happen other than the price. When you are presenting a price, we seldom offer one price. Take it or leave it unless it's a special offer As we mentioned before, we normally offer three prices. This will give the customer a variety of choices and price point to choose from. This will also widen your market in your category and allow many customers to join your brand now For later upgrade. For each product category, you can have up to three price points designed toward three different customers. The first offer is basic covers that essential for a product to be functional. Notice it's not made of cheap stuff, just less stuff, different materials stuff or smaller stuff. The second offer is for people who like to invest a little more in their life quality but still live On a budget. Add a few extra details and quality stuff to justify the value of the investment and price. In many scenarios, people will ignore the cheapest since they think it's the worst and desire The most expensive since they dream of the best and finally settle to the middle choice while dreaming of upgrading For the best. And last but not least, you got to have an offering for people who like to separate themselves From the ordinary shopper and want the best of the best. However, you need to work hard on making them believe that it's worth the value, not only in The component quantity, but the quality of materials, attention to detail, and the overall sensual presentation Of the product. Now that you have learned the first way of pricing your product, which is not losing money and meeting A targeted markup, we come to the second method of pricing, which has nothing to do with The cost of your product at all. It's called a perceived value of a product creating a halo effect around your brand. Then using scarcity to increase demand, owning your product becomes a matter of pleasure rather than An issue of price. This strategy takes time and effort to show results. You won't be able to pull it off at the beginning of your business. Just keep it at the back of your mind and move toward it. The less quantity of something beautifully made or essential for our survival, the more we want it And the more its price goes up. It's a pure supply and demand, plus playing with the element of scarcity and exclusivity. If the product is so necessary and scarce, a customer might pay whatever it takes to get their hands On your limited products. When you position yourself or the brand as an authority or a celebrity You can manufacture the sense of exclusivity and scarcity Supreme does a great job with this idea by working With top designers and limit the supply of their products, which will increase the perceived value Of an ordinary product. For Jeffrey Star Cosmetics, you can buy the same set of mirrors for $5. But over time he built the celebrity power through social media to increase the price as he wishes. And believe it or not, people still buy it. I want you to get rid of the idea that people don't have money to spend, that far from the truth. People want to spend money on products that make them feel different and exclusive, be it poor or rich They will finance it. If They lust it. Keep in mind that prestigious brands spend billions of dollars on hiring the best craftsmen, hiring the best models Hosting the most exotic shows, work with top designers, build the most expensive stores, and work With the top publishing media to build the halo effect of a social difference and wealth. That's what people are buying the brand logo and its social image. You cannot just hire a couple of models, take some fancy shots, design a fancy logo with a fancy name and call it luxury on a budget. Then expect people to associate it with luxury. There's no luxury on a budget. People who buy luxury don't care about money or a budget. These people buy into the brand name. It's heritage and image. There are history and scarcity involved. For every of these marketing experts There are a long history and connection with a large group of audience, regardless of What your Idea about them is they got the history, relationship, and audience, their fans might pay whatever it takes To spend half an hour for a business consultation. Now, imagine me with my two month old newly created account and a couple of hundreds of followers wanting To compete with them head to head or price my courses and my services at the same price point. That would be crazy and immature on my side. They have provided so much value that I need to work my ass off even to get close to the same amount Of value and dare to ask for the same price of my services. Therefore, it's not about who teaches you better. It's a matter of the brand's social image, the number of people who know the brand. And how can the brand symbol increases the value of the people associated with it. Marketing and branding With the right image are very critical. To be associate with the premium, you need to be presented as a premium, be known and associated With a premium and be perceived as a premium. With time, your price will become premium. That's why you see so many talented artists with talented work get crushed. They expect their work to be valued and wait for rich customers. Instead, they have to get into exhibitions, show their work, be seen, sell their first work Of art at a reasonable price, get to be known a bit, build a name, let people talk about their products Then they will have the social power to price their creation as they wish. Now, I might be wrong. I might have pissed you off. It's fine. I can only say I wish you all the best. But the market is what the market is. It's practical and it doesn't care about your product as much as it cares about itself. For small businesses that are just starting the best strategy to build value is to take a product That has a demand and simplify it to its essence, you can simplify it by its function or by its aesthetics Then sell it to the people that value that one major thing. In the function scenario Take everything out and keep what matters the most, which is the essential function of the product Without all the extra fluffy stuff. Your strategy is to bring the product to the masses and widen your customer base. This will give you a larger piece of the market share. However, for this strategy to be profitable, you need to be a superior marketer with a deep pocket To reach and educate your customers. This strategy is preferred with a product, with a subscription based business model. With one time customer acquisition cost, you can lock the customer down for future repurchases and recurring revenue. The other strategy is to simplify it with a taste of style or a niche. This product could be sold at a premium price to a more sophisticated customer. Your job is to build an entire premium lifestyle brand image around your product. This also means that slowly you evolve from a product business into a more of a product and experience and a service business combined. You should also, besides your physical products, add digital products and services. Since the overhead and product cost of your digital product is almost close to nothing compared to Your physical product. Once you make it, then it's done. It is scalable and it will work hand in hand with your physical product and diversify your income stream. A bakery shop can sell bread in-store, can sell online bread recipes, and can also sell in-store and online making workshops. This will position you as an expert in your field and increase the perceived value of your brand. Some of the best types of content to engage with your audience and increase your brand value is educating Your customers about how to solve their daily problems around a specific topic that is related to Your product. Then solve the problem with your product as a supporting element. It's not a hard pitch rather than a demonstration. Another kind of content is a Q&A content, where you answer the question that your customers always ask Behind the scene and unboxing content are also a great idea to create a transparent image Behind your brand and offering. Now, keep in mind that your content should not be presented as a lecture. Leave that to college. Rather, it's more of a conversational content. Let's also keep in mind that it's not a pitch Rather, as an entertaining and educational content, we are building a brand around our product. We are not desperate for a sale. Talk about your product application and solution rather than only pitching the product itself. Entertaining does not mean distracting or exaggerating. Just be authentic and natural. You can bring some humor to your content. You can also add some cute and personal aspects of your life into your marketing. Always remember we are talking to people, we are trying to form a connection, not too much drama Just a little touch, no matter whatever you do, always avoid the corporate like image. The whole point is to connect with the customer on a personal level, get them to be familiar with us So when we recommend our products and ask them to try, it doesn't feel too direct, weird and unfamiliar. Rather, it's like, yeah, I trust you. This looks cool. Sure, why not? You know, when there is no connection established but you try to force something into someone That they don't want. Kind of weird, isn't it? Still, when the love is there now you become more desirable and they want you more. So we give them more and more and more of the thing they want until they deeply fall in love with us. We are building a halo effect around our brand. So when it comes to the customer to choose between our brand or others, it's a no brainer. And that's simply established by your content, which made you seem familiar, close to heart and likeable. This will also make people feel that your brand care about building communities rather than Only making a profit. It will also position you as the authority of the niche. This will make people proud of being a part of your brand and work hard to promote your business. And if someone tries to hurt and damage your reputation, you got fans to protect and defend your brand. Isn't that so much better than only promoting your product and services or just screaming out for attention? The job of the marketer is to give value as much as possible. So when it comes to the sale, it becomes, please take my money and give me That beautiful thing of yours. When you are creating your content, keep a few things in mind. When you are educating, just educate. Focus on one specific thing, then give it your best value. You are building a reputation, not only making a video. Don't talk about too many points in one video. Otherwise people get confused and don't know what you're talking about. Don't focus too much on yourself. Marketing is not about you. It's not about showing your friends and family members that you have a business. That's not what a business is all about. And that's not what the customers care about. It's not a show off. It's a business. Another thing to keep in mind, we are not trying to become influencers at the moment. We don't want to confuse our audience with different types of content, which will make your customers confused about what you are selling. Another problem that many newbie marketers do is inconsistency with their content. They have no plan what to post about, or sometimes they just post anything they think it's cool. That's not how you run a business profile. You must be clear about what are your business objectives and have the content plan built around The lifestyle, problems, and solution of your products and services when you want to create your content group it Into themes. For example, if you are selling health related products, group your content into a strong mindset theme Healthy lifestyle theme, healthy food theme, daily workout theme, and so on. Then take a couple of days to plan the entire theme and another couple of days to shoot the whole theme With videos and images. Now you have an entire month of content which will allow you to focus more on being with your customers Live and interact with them face to face. Another problem I see is that new business owner don't think about the overall presentation of Their environment and product, which cheapens out the entire brand and makes you look unprofessional. Always take an extra effort to find a better environment, be it outdoor or a simple indoor set up. The point is to elevate your entire brand experience and image without breaking the budget. And as usual, think of how to connect with your audience with cute elements. Think relations, not products. All right. We have come to your assignment. Your homework for this week is to group the problems, solutions and lifestyle of your product or services Into themes. Then create a plan for the next three months of content. Then shoot for the first theme of your content and start uploading. Don't worry about followers We are building a brand image, not influencer page. Take care for now and I will see you in the next video.
9. Bonus: Know Your Numbers: Welcome back. In this video, I will walk us through some accounting basics. I understand that mass might be frightening for some people, but please don't fear and do your best to stick with me till the end of this video. I promised to make it as simple as possible. If you are an entrepreneur, you must know your numbers. Otherwise you will be out of the business pretty passed. The first concept we will be talking about is the cost of creating your product. And it's called cost of goods. How much does it cost you to produce one unit? Let's go back to our burglar example and calculate the costs that are involved directly and making Weinberger. First, we have to calculate the cost of the raw materials. Your suppliers do usually provide you with information or feud wholesale price. Then it's only a matter of the volume that cost into small pieces. Keep in mind that in some products such as Berger, this cost is as close as possible to the average cost. Since each slice of tomato might differ in weight and size. And you don't have to do the maps for every separate burger. You only do it once and that's it. This cost changes when your supplier inform you about significant changes in prices. Once you add up all the materials cost together, you should come up with a total materials cost per unit for your product. Take a note of this number and remember it carefully. The second cost that we need to calculate and add to your materials costs is the direct labor cost that is involved in creating this product. Say for example, that you hire one staff for $6 an hour. Takes him three minutes to make one burger from start to finish. Therefore, it takes him one hour to make 20 workers, 60 minutes divided by three workers equal to 20 burgers. To calculate labor costs of making one burger is only a matter of simple algebra. For 60 minutes. It costs $6 for three minutes, it cost X amount. Now, it's only a matter of simple cross multiplication. X equal to six multiplied by three divided by 60, which equals to 18 divided by 60, which equal to $0.30 per burger. Feel free to use the same formula and change it with your numbers to find the total cost of goods, simply add materials costs to the direct labor costs. And you should come up with a total cost of goods, which equals to $1.40 per burger. What does this number tells you? It says that you should never sell your product at a price lower than $1.40 per burger unless you are planning on losing money. It also tells you if your cost of goods is higher or lower than, than the industry average. Now, let's assume that we are going to sell this burger for $2. Which brings us to the next concept, which is called profit margin. Profit margin is how much money do you make on selling one burger? Profit margin equals to your price minus your cost of goods. In this case, profit model equals to $2 minus $1.40, which equals to $0.60. And that's equal to Profit Margin of 30%. In this scenario, 30% is pretty awesome. Normally your profit margin in this industry is around 69%. But for the sake of making this example easy to understand, we are going to stick with those number. Profit model is equal to price minus your cost of goods. This is one of the most important formula that you need to keep in your mind. You only have to do it once, but It's critical for your business success. Here is a list of some other costs that you need to consider. Why calculating your cost of goods. And it varies depending on your industry. Materials costs, direct labor costs, shipping fees. If you provide free shipping, online stores and credit cards transaction fees such as paper, Amazon and credit cards, insurance fees, your state tax or European VAT tax and product maintain warranty fees. If your cost of goods is much higher compared to your competition, it means that you need to go back and renegotiate your suppliers, deal, find different supplier, or change some of your component of your product. Otherwise, consider adding more value to your products so you can offer it at a higher price. The second accounting concept that we need to talk about this cross profit, unlike the profit margin, is where you calculate the profit margin. Selling one unit of product. Gross profit is the profits that you make on your total sales, says that you sell 50 burgers a day. We sell for $2 for each Berger, and it costs you $1.40 per burger. Therefore, we sell $100 worth of money with a total cost curves to $70, and we end up with 30% in gross profit. Gross profit comes in handy when we had to calculate the total profit for a specific periods or estimate the total profit of different products with different cost. In this example, we can't generate better gross profit by upselling you're offering and introducing less costly product at a higher price point. As we have seen in the last example, that the profit margin of sending one burger is 30%. But what if we combine it with a Coke, which costs $0.20 and we can sell it for $1. The profit margin when a single cup of coke is 80%, which is excellent. If you bundle both products together, then you will end up with a total cost of $1.60 and the full retail price of $3, which equals to 46% in correspondence, that is 16% higher than all the Sullenberger. Now you should be able to reason why they tried to upsell you when you make an order at Manto mode, this is because the money is in the strings. They make a very low profit margin on the burger. Now that we have calculated all the costs of making your product, must people stop here and yet still end up with a loss? Why? Because you still haven't calculated your fixed costs. Think of your fixed cost as the underlying expenses that you need to make payments for your business to be able to operate and function. The first fixed costs that you need to think about is rent. Even if you are going to perform from mom, you still need to consider renting one of your house room as a fixed cost when you are looking for a lease, you might be looking for how much should you pay per month. Although this is critical, there is something more important to consider. A few plans approach as a distribution for your product and services. You should always be thinking concerning the trade-off between space versus traffic. If your product require high food tropic for sales to happen, they're looking for an abandoned place to rent for the sake of being cheap, will drive you out of the business. I see this problem happens all the time when the business owner tries to save money or rent and find a place, very little traffic. And I asked him, what is the point of owning a store was low traffic and bad environment in the first place. On the other hand, if you need a large space for a functional reason, and you feel that you can't do your marketing on social media or hire a separate sales reps there fighting a place on the last floor of a shopping mall will make sense. Since he will value space over traffic and people once they arrive at the chain, will require more quiet and focused environment. Another problems that I see with many stores is a problem with space efficiency. When you rent a space, you should make sure that you are using the space to get the best return on your investment. Avoid Western your space with a lot of declarative and nonfunctional areas? Yes. You still want to have a peaceful place, was a fantastic environment. But it's not an art gallery, it's a business. And you should measure your space efficiency on the return per square meter or square foot. In this scenario, you can see the Starbucks makes an excellent use of space. If you find that trending store might be expensive, you might consider operating from a truck or pop shop. On this occasion, you're timing and location are flexible. You will also end up with much lower overhead costs comparing to a retail store. And last but not least, if you still find that all of the above to be unnecessary or unable to afford, you can always start an online store at your fixed cost would be your monthly subscription. In this case, it will be $39.99 a month. Keep in mind that each type of products require different kinds of audience. Make sure to find a platform that fits your products. Now that you calculated your rain. Others things that you need to be aware of as fixed costs are your utility bills and your employee salaries, those are the salaries of your most critical employees. For example, your accountant or your waitress. Without them, your business won't be able to operate. Here's a list of the tics Gaza you need to think about, and they vary depending on your industry. This lists include rent, salaries, utilities, insurance, property taxes, machinery cost, and maintenance expenses. Okay, so now that you have an idea about your cost of goods and fixed costs, start to have a look at your marketing expenses. Many small business entrepreneurs dismiss or underestimate marketing costs. But if you want to sell products, then you have to do marketing. And its usually Cost you a certain amount of money. Let's look at an example of how to look at your marketing expenses. Let's assume that you launched a Facebook campaign. It runs for three days. It costs you a $100. You will reach 100 people, 100 absorbs people, will click on your ads and list assumes that you have create products with a high conversion rate of 10%, which means that ten people will buy your product. By the way, this is a very high conversion rate. But for now, let's keep the numbers simple. Which means that it's going to cost you $10 in marketing expenses to acquire one customer. It sounds cool, right? Not yet. Let's look at the other side of the equation. Let's look at your product. It's going to cost you $5 to make one unit and you decide to sell it for $10. Since we sold ten units, your total sales should be $100, right? You should be happy to break even, but wait, not too fast. Let's find our gross profit, which equals to $100 revenue minus $50 in production costs, which equals to $50. Let's substract your profits from your marketing costs, which equals to $50 minus $100, and which equals to negative $50. Wait, what just happened? Or you just lost $50. Imagine if we haven't managed to control our budget, we got too excited and we spent once our adult on Facebook ads without doing any customers or market research, we will end up with a negative $500 as a loss in these scenarios. To at least break even, you should work on creating a fantastic marketing plan was a conversion rate of 15% or raise your price point to $15, or maybe bring your cost to $0, which is impossible unless you are selling it is little product. When you calculate your marketing costs, you should always keep your profit margin and the number of you require sales to break even at a framework to calculate your return on investment. Now that you have all those numbers in mind, it's time to find your profit. Profit equals to total revenue minus total cost. And that's including cost of goods, fixed cost, and marketing expenses. You should always keep track of those numbers. Otherwise, you will end up with negative cashflow, high depth, and bankruptcy company. All those costs will bring you to the net profit bottom line, which is your total sales minus your total cost plus taxes. If your revenue exceeds your cost, then you will end up with a positive net profit. If your income is less than your expenses, then you will end up negative and loss must start ups a negative income for the first two or three years, and sum takes up to five years to pray even. This is why I told you at the beginning of this course, try to keep a stable income source at the moment. Okay, so let's combine all those concepts into one small example. Let's calculate a required amount of investment for a simple burger truck. Let's assume that you buy a cooking equipment for $2 thousand and it's only onetime payment, period, a food truck for $2400 a year. And it's going to cost you $3 thousand a year to maintain. You decide to hire one step for $5 an hour and you will work eight hours a day, which equals to $1200 a month and 40 solid $400 a year. Your total fixed cost would be $21,800 for the first year and 19804 second year, assuming that you will continue using the same equipment. Let's find your break even. Pull your first year in business. Your total fixed cost is 2900. Let's look at cost of goods. $1.40 per burger, your price would be $2 per burger. Your profit margin would be $0.60 per burger. Your break-even point is 21, seven hundred, eight hundred dollars a year, divided by $0.60, which equals to 36,324 burgers per year, set equals to 327 burgers and 101 burgers per day, which equals to 12 burgers. And our, if you operate for eight hours a day, who sets lot, you should be very good at selling burgers. Your burgers should be awesome. Keep in mind that I'm assuming that you have already found great cation and you do not need any extra marketing effort. So what can you do to reach faster to your breakeven and make more profit? Well, first, you can find location where customer calf toward higher prices. Second, you can rent a cheaper truck to reduce your overhead costs. Or you can work on your product costs and find a way to bring it down. And you can improve your gross profit by upsetting and crossing different products. Okay, so now you have it. After all, it's not that complicated. Do it for once, then visited every three months or half a year, at least you have a clear idea about your numbers and you will know that you are operating in the green zone of your business. So let's summarize. You should always get good at your cost of goods, your fixed costs, and you break even numbers. Your profit margin equals to price minus your cost of goods. Your profit equals to total revenue minus total cost. You should always be looking for ways to increase your gross profit with upsetting and cross-selling, always work on reducing your tastes and overhead expenses. Avoid competing with low prices, especially when you're starting out. Do not underestimate your marketing budget. So for your assignment for this week, you need to create a cost breakdown. Pick one of your product, or research any products that you are interested in, list and calculate the cost of goods, materials, direct labor, shipping, transaction fees, and so on. This I calculate over it costs, website rents, salaries, including yourself and your space. How much is it going to cost you to be in business for one year? How many units should you sell per month to break even? How much should you spend on molecule to reach yourself? It might be from 30 to 50% of your profit margin. Please take this seriously. Do a slowly, you don't have to rush it. Have some risks. There are a lot of tools that will come next article. Use them for your benefit. If you have any question, please leave it in the Q and a section. I will see you in the next video.
10. Making Your Brand Solid: Hello, marketing genius, congratulation, you have made it to the last video, and now you have become Very knowledgeable about the basics of marketing. But before you graduate, I want us to spend a little more time together and zoom out a little to see The bigger picture. Our goal throughout this course was to build a customer focused brand. The base and the core of this brand are your customer's wants, needs and desires. We took those desires and we did our market research, then developed a desirable product that attract Customers and separate us from the competition. Once we lock down the desire and the product, we had to present it in the image that reflects our customers' Current or the future desirable outcome image through our visual presentation We did our best to make the customer feel that our brand is designed perfectly for them. Then we took all the sales and marketing process and we tied them into a marketing and selling machine Which we called a funnel. In the end, we complete the structure with value giving, customer caring, understanding, and helpful Customers service. If we have done all the work, we should have a strong, consistent, likeable and trusted brand. At the same time, most of your competition might compete with you on a specific product and offering. They cannot out-win your brand because they don't see the entire system, which is why most businesses Are broken. They only have products, not brands or systems. By now, if you have any challenges with your system, you should be able to take out each piece and examine it separately, then put it back into the entire system just like any other machine. The second thing I want to tell you about is this Always treat your customer with the best attitude ever. And here is why. A business can make money by attracting a new customer, sell more products To the same customer or by getting more referrals from that same customer. Marketing can help you attract new customers, but bad service will make you lose them immediately If your service is horrible While your marketing spending and effort are outstanding, you got a massive problem. You can imagine how fast a lousy service reputation would travel while your marketing message is sending The opposite signal. That's why great marketing for mediocre products and services is the fastest lane to death For serving an an unhappy customer It doesn't matter who you think is right, the answer is always the customer. They are the ones taking the risk and spending the money with your business instead of spending it With someone else. Always, always, always makes the customer feel they are right. Even if you have to return their money with an apology, this will keep your public image strong and make you look coming from a place of strength and understanding rather than from a place of scarcity and desperation. Remember, people spend money to be happy and the happier they are, the more that they will spend With you. If they wanted an average experience, they would just go to the mall and get overwhelmed with average things. And that's why they pay you to be served and treated nicely. If they like you, they will do more business with you, bring friends to your business and boost Your public image, which will increase the demand for your business. However, if they dislike your brand for a simple reason, as for an important service, this simple Action might cause driving you out of business. Therefore, marketing is a system that requires all parts to work together in harmony to attract Win and maintain a customer. The third thing I want to talk to you about is that you have to deliver on what you promise or better But not worse. You cannot promote one thing and deliver something else. And if your customers complain, you blame them for not being careful about their choice. You call them out of their mind, dumb and needy. I have seen a lot of small businesses act like that, in business You always come from a place of love, respect and integrity. You show your customer you care about their money and their spending with you is a valuable investment. You are not a scam, a con artist or a money loving, cold hearted brand. Nowadays, customer have so many options to shop from and they won't even hesitate to ignore you For a more entertaining and self-serving offer. The four things that I want to emphasize is competition. You should not focus your effort on fighting your competition. It's a waste of time, money and energy. Focus on serving the customers better. They are the ones spending the money. Do whatever it takes to make them like you and be close to you while leaving the competition to exhaust Each others and vanish. The fifth one that I need to mention Is this always have a benchmark and a reference point, when you are a small business, you cannot Afford to reinvent things, you rely on shortcuts and reference points. That's why your inspirational research from different successful brands is essential. This will boost the overall quality of your brand in a brief time. The market moves quickly and the customer will not wait for you to learn and adapt or forgive you For mistakes that could be prevented early by research and good planning. The sixth point is do not assume that your customers are dumb or don't care about their money Right now The customers have all the tools to find out all the information they need to make a purchase. They rely on social proof to get excited and decide on a purchase. Therefore, any kind of manipulation and few bad sales would raise people's attention and make them Suspicious toward your brand, which obviously will get you out of business pretty quickly. Our job as a marketer is to plan and design a road for our customers to follow. So when they come out at the other end, they will have confidence in their decisions and make them Buy more from us. That planning separates successful marketing teams from the failing ones. The seventh point is you have to be patient with your customers. Most people are not unknowledgeable about their problems and they require guidance. They like to try things out. Sometimes they are fussy and don't appreciate the value of your hard work. However, the matter of the fact is this. If you treat them right and nurture the relationship just like a mother nurturing her newly born child Raising and taking care of them at every step of their lives, no matter what be fo sure, this kid Will always come back for more of that love and care. Business is a lifetime relationship not a one time transaction. If big brands understood this concept and apply it successfully to their core. There is no reason you shouldn't. And last but not least, start small, maybe one product or two or perhaps a small product line Start local Get to know your customers, what they like and dislike. Get to practice your sales skills. Allow customers to try your product and fall in love with it. If it's a success, then you can invest more resources and scale it. All right, Tom, Tom, Tom. Here we go. Here is your final homework. Now that you understand your customers, you already planned for a desirable product and already researched Your competition. You already have inspirations and ideas on how to capture your product in the most desirable way and already know how to attract customers to your store and make them come back for more. If I have done my job right, which I hope I did, you should be able to see the bigger picture Which is the strategy and the small details which are the tactics. Your homework is to come up with a complete marketing plan for your small business. You already have done most of the work, but now you have to tie them together into one cohesive plan. I want you to create an action plan for small steps and a timeline on executing your marketing plan starting From next week. All right, congratulations. You have become a true, true marketer. I hope that you enjoyed this course and found it pleasurable. Please, please leave me your honest review and feedback which will be helpful for future students To join this course. I would also appreciate it so much if you share this course with your friends or people in need to learn and improve their marketing skills. I have tried my best to make this course simple to understand easy to access and affordable so it could Benefit the most people possible. I would like to thank you again for investing your precious and valuable time and money with me. I hope to see you in future courses. This was Nour with all love. Cheers.
Nour Boustani, Branding & Marketing Strategist
