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What we can learn from the guide
Over the past few months, I’ve been diving deep into the world of marketing when I found a book full of treasures by Allan Dib.
Some of its insights felt like a no-brainer (duh, of course), but others? Absolute eye-openers that made me rethink my marketing game plan, mainly because of my semi-successful book launch last year.
If you also feel overwhelmed by marketing jargon, strategies, and tactics, I feel you!
I still don’t have all the answers, but I want to share what I’ve learned from reading the book. Who knows, maybe all you need is ‘The 1-Page Marketing Plan.’
Strategy and tactics are not the same thing.
Strategy is your grand plan — it’s the blueprint for your house, while tactics are the actions you take toward the plan — they’re the bricks & mortar.
If we jump straight into tactics without a strategy, we’ll end up with what Allan Dib calls ‘bright shiny object syndrome.’ We’ll be chasing after every new trend without a clear direction. I was guilty of this in the past when I wanted to ride all of the social media outlets to drive traffic to my YouTube channel. Now, I know I should’ve focused on only a few channels.
The 1-Page Marketing Plan is broken down into 3 phases and 9 areas.
1 — Target market: Know who you’re talking to.
2 — Message to my target market: Craft a compelling message.
3 — The media I’ll use to reach my target market: Choose the right channels.
Goal of the phase: Get your audience to know you.
4 — Have a lead capture system: Get those interested people on your list.
5 — Have a lead nurturing system: Warm them up for the sale.
6 — Have a sales conversion strategy: Turn those warm leads into sales.
Goal of the phase: Get your audience to like you so that they purchase a product from you.
7 — Have a method to deliver a world-class experience: Make them go ‘WOW!’
8 — Have ways to increase customer lifetime value: Keep them coming back for more (more products, more articles, more videos, etc.)
9 — Ways to orchestrate and stimulate referrals: Turn customers into brand ambassadors.
Goal of the phase: Get your audience to trust you & buy from you regularly.
The book goes into each area much more deeply. Here’s my takeaway.
Being a big fish in a small pond is way better than being a small fish in a big ocean, meaning if we specialize, we’ll be more respected and perceived as more valuable than a jane-of-all-trades.
Dib suggests using the ‘PVP Index’ to find our ideal target market. PVP stands for
Then, create an avatar for your niche to really understand them
Our message should be a siren song that lures our target market.
It should focus on solving their pain points rather than boasting about our product features.
People are more willing to pay for a cure than for prevention. Rather than promising future pleasure, targeting existing pain will result in much higher conversion, customer satisfaction, and price resistance.
To connect with our prospects, we need to understand the perceived cause of their pain (whom they blame). Then, we need to agree with them and tie this into our solution (our product) using our USP (unique selling proposition), explaining why they should buy from us instead of our competitors.
We need to use social media to build relationships while not forgetting about traditional advertisements.
We shouldn’t rely solely on social media because that’s a borrowed platform, so building our own email list and marketing assets (website & blog) are essential for long-term success.
The goal is to get interested people onto your database, e.g. email list.
Once they’re there, we need to nurture them with valuable information (e.g. a regular newsletter) until they’re ready to buy (again and again).
We need to think of ourselves as farmers, not hunters.
Build trust before making the sale. Offer guarantees or money-back options to alleviate fears and give customers a ‘try before they buy’ experience.
Yes, there’ll always be a few unsatisfied customers, but providing a full refund is less damaging to our brand than lots of terrible reviews.
We need to ‘WOW’ our customers and turn them into fans.
At some point, we must systemize our business to provide a consistent, top-notch experience by using automation and marketing & sales systems.
If you’re also new to marketing like me, having a marketing 1-pager GPS can be super helpful to your destination without any detours (I know I had a few in the past).
If you want to learn more about the topic, I’d recommend watching his video on YouTube.