3 Digital Marketing Ideas An Entrepreneur Or Founder Must Know When Starting A New Business

 

Doesn’t it bother you that you do not know about digital marketing when you are an entrepreneur ? Today an entrepreneur who doesn’t want to succeed doesn’t have a digital marketing plan. Customers can easily be acquired on the net because more and more people are increasingly using social media like Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, LinkedIn etc POTRAZ (Zimbabwe’s telecommunications regulator) is always reporting. However, I am going to help you out by sharing three digital marketing ideas you must know as an entrepreneur starting a new business .

Being able to acquire customers for a new product / company is every entrepreneur’s dream. This is so for good reasons. Almost every problem can be solved when a product has a market. For example if you can sell your new product you become highly inspired because you know that you have got something working. If you can sell you are unlikely to get into bad debt because your sales will ensure that you pay off your business loans. If you can sell you can hire quality talent that can help you short circuit your path towards success because your sales can ensure that you pay competitive salaries.

So how best can an entrepreneur use the latest digital media in order to sell ? In this article I am going to share with you three digital marketing ideas specifically tailor made for a person like you who is starting a business. So keep on reading this is highly relevant !   

But how did I got involved in all this ? How can people get involved in this? How can you as well? You know how I got into digital marketing isn’t because of some top university degree. A certain client once asked me, “ You learnt all this from UZ ( University of Zimbabwe) . Right ?” He was surprised with “No” being my answer.

So how did I got started? Well after my A Levels I did some few courses with the Real Estate Institute of Zimbabwe (REIZ) and I got employed as a property negotiator at a certain real estate agency.

I was a hungry newcomer employed on a commission only basis. The industry in Zimbabwe was using traditional marketing methods like print newspaper and banners only. In the twenty first century this was no longer working and people were starving.

This is when I realized that digital marketing was the way to go and I had to do something about it. Unfortunately, I had no mentor to help me in terms of giving directions, telling me where to go and what exactly to do !

So I started on my own by digging on the internet. During this time the emergency of social media was dazzling young people. So I joined Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. I became a property blogger too.

A turning point …

 

A lot of changes begun taking place because of digital media. Firstly I managed to earn $1 000.00 worth of commission through the help of my blog Property Matters News in 2014.

 It all started when I wrote an article titled,

 “ Financial consequences of purchasing property from a seriously-ill seller and other purchases to avoid ”.

This article resonated with a Harare lady.

She had just purchased a Msasa (Harare) house from a seriously-ill seller and there was an outstanding balance. After reading the post she decided to clear this balance by selling another property - a piece of land in Madokero (Harare). I was the real estate agent she commissioned to do the job on her behalf.

Apart from the money I was highly inspired because I got something that was working.

This empowered me to seek for more goals. To me this meant converting into customers the vast network of current and potential connections right in front of my eyes on LinkedIn and other social channels.

 This led me to the second change called social prospecting. Social prospecting involves monitoring and / or searching social networks for signs of customer interest, immediate and future buying intent. So I invented my own social prospecting method and I called it script prospecting.

 But how did script prospecting started ?

Well it all started when a generous friend introduced me to a series of real estate sales training videos by a top American coach called Mike Ferry.

 I took particular note of the role of scripts in lead generation and prospecting. Mike said “ The reason why many agents fail is that they do not know what to say when they meet prospects.” This resonated with me because I had this problem of not knowing what to say when meeting prospects.

 So he invented scripts that were to be practiced and memorized so that when you meet a prospect you know what to say.

 The idea that knowing the right thing to say rather than rambling on in front of prospects played an important part in effective lead generation made sense to me. So I decided to try this out by creating own scripts to be used on LinkedIn.

 The results …

Script prospecting has been an amazing catalyst in the achievement of a high school leaver’s dream – converting social media connections to paying customers. Here are some examples of some of these customers;

Today, I have taken advanced steps with script prospecting by creating a course called The LinkedIn Connections Converter. I want you to also use script prospecting in finding customers for whatever you sell. Cars, real estate, software, clothes, fintech, construction services, legal services, any service or product – I don’t care what is it and were you are, script prospecting helps to find the right customer for it. So The LinkedIn Connections Converter teaches you how to do it and the premium plan comes with continuous updates too.

Enough about the course. We shall talk about it at the end. For now lets talk about what I have promised you at the outset. So what are the three digital marketing ideas you must know as an entrepreneur ?

 

(1) Innovation

According to a Harvard Business Review article titled The 4 Types Of Innovation And The Problems They Solve “ innovation is at its core about solving problems ”.

As an entrepreneur you are therefore, not new to innovation because of the mere fact that you got a new product you created to solve a particular problem.

For me during my formative years the problem was a lack of money. This probably is a major problem to entrepreneurs especially in Zimbabwe where there is virtually nothing like venture capital. As a newcomer real estate agent I wanted to use digital marketing but I didn’t have the money to pay for training in digital marketing and to pay social channels to boast my posts. So what did I do ?

In terms of training my solution to this was difficult. I tried to figure out things for myself and it has taken me years. Yes I was learning from online experts but they do not give you comprehensive solutions if you do not pay them. And they are expensive too.

But one can’t operate on a 0 budget. So I used my blog as a marketing platform that helped me to get a few consultancy contracts and this has also worked. Writing blog articles about what you do is more effective than a CV in demonstrating your expertise ! This is the reason why I still write articles not only on my blog but also on emails like this to people like you.

I advise that its not only for entrepreneurs but also for employment seekers to set up a blog and publish articles demonstrating their expertise. I want to assure you that under theses circumstances employers will approach you from a position of respect and everything will be history.

You must also consider this form of digital marketing its called content marketing. In fact I also teach it in my training The LinkedIn Connections Converter together with setting up a blog using free blogging platforms.

Probably the biggest innovation I have made was to invent my own prospecting method that allowed me to effectively prospect on social media without a premium account. I am forever grateful to God. Again this is what I teach in my course The LinkedIn Connections Converter.

 

(2) Resourcefulness

Again according to a Harvard Business Review article titled The Importance Of Resourcefulness “ Resourcefulness is about optimizing what you have to work with.” Following the above since I could not afford paid lessons by digital marketing experts Iike Brendon Burchard I did my best to focus on free ones and to make do with what was there. Eventually, I created my own technic - script prospecting.

 

(3) Opportunity cost

After years of struggling, lone nights  trying to figure out digital marketing on my own this probably is the biggest success principle I must share with you.  Before getting started doing what I have just taught you for free you should first ask yourself “What is the cost of this opportunity ?” What are other things you are giving up in order to pursue this opportunity ?

So let me simplify opportunity cost for you. Let me give an example. Lets say you are trying to build your digital marketing and you spend a lot of time every day trying to do this. You continue doing this for year one, year two, year three, year four and year five. You spend five years trying to set up your digital marketing all by yourself struggling and trying to make it happen.

On the other hand what you could have done is hire an expert who could have short-circuited your success path. So that instead of spending five years struggling with it you spend just one year and you get the same level of success.    

So what is the opportunity cost here for that person who spend five years?  The answer is he has lost those five years trying to struggle, trying to figure this out instead of spending one year plus some money to get the same level of results.

 

So the opportunity cost is he literally lost five years because he did not go and find help to help him in his journey which could have skyrocketed his results.

This is crucial my friend ! You see a lot of us are so stuck in our ways of thinking that we do not think of opportunity cost as to how big it is and how powerful it is.  We are only thinking of the immediate cost of something. For example how much you are charged.  Unfortunately, if money is the only way you measure anything then you will always be drowning in negative opportunity cost.

If money is the only thing you measure something you cannot think of long term value of anything. So it’s a really important idea here.  If you are trying to increase your sales and build a business using digital marketing so that you realize the success you deserve as a hard working entrepreneur you have to value the opportunity cost.

Should you be spending five years of your life trying to figure it out all by yourself or should you hire an expert to help you do it in a year. This is a question you have to answer yourself.

If you are interested in skyrocketing your results in a shorter period of time then you should consider upgrading to the premium plan of The LinkedIn Connections Converter training.

The training starts with the free plan but this plan only keep you going it does not give you great results. To get great results you must upgrade to the premium plan.

Learn more about the premium plan please click premium plan today.