Smart Internet Marketing Strategies

ASHA 2014

Chad Mendell

• EquestrianProfessional.com

• Equestrian Social Media Boot Camp

• Equiseen

• ESMA Judge 2012, 2014

Past:

The Horse – Executive Editor

chad@equestrianprof.com@ChadMendell

• At any given time, only 3% of the people in your market are ready to make a purchase or use your services.

• What about the other 97%?

- How do you stay in front of them?

Overview

• What’s Changed

• Marketing Goals

• Content Marketing – Awareness

• Social Media – Engagement

• The Next Step – Conversion

• Tools

What’s Changed?

Marketing Has Changed

Inbound vs. Outbound

Social Media

Mobile

Equestrian Niche – Social media is even more critical for equine related business due to word of mouth and because it is both visual and mobile

Setting Marketing

Marketing: The 7 Steps

1. Define your goals

2. How you will achieve these?

3. Your Target Market

4. Your Business Identity/Branding

5. Your Niche - Unique value proposition

6. The Marketing Tools you will use

7. Your Budget

Online Marketing Goals

There are two main elements of online marketing:

1. Traffic and Awareness – Getting people to notice you

2. Conversion – Taking those visitors and turning them into leads and customers

Define your sales process

• Define the path you want your customers to

take.

• For different types of customers

• For each point of entry

• If you have diverse offerings write it down

for each one

Customer Pyramid

Your Website

Content Management

Examples:

•Drupal•Expression Engine•Joomla•Mambo•Moodle•Wordpress

Website Pages

• Homepage

• About

• Services

• Contact

• FAQ

• Customer Stories (Testimonials)

• Blog/News/Newsletter

Content vs. Ads

Content vs. Ads

Content Marketing Advertising

Pros • Free (not including resources) •Builds brand trust•Great for SEO

• Excellent at creating awareness quickly• Campaigns can be budgeted to fit a business’s needs

Cons • Time consuming• Takes longer to see results

• Can be pricey ($25-$100,000 a month)• Must be managed constantly (daily/weekly)• ROI can be difficult to manage

80 – 90%80 – 90%80 – 90%80 – 90%

10%10%10%10%

Customer Pyramid

Types of Content

• FAQ (customer pain points)• Behind the scenes • Events• Current news• Your Customers (in a good way)• Ask questions and solicit input• Aggregate

It’s not about hard selling.

Does it have value? Content can educate, motivate, inspire…..

• Is it informative? • Is it entertaining?• Is it visually stunning or interesting?• Is it thought provoking or engaging?• Is it “share/like/comment” worthy

• It takes planning …

Quality Content

THINKING LIKE A PUBLISHER

• What does your audience really need to know? (pain points)

• Create and share awesome stuff (the best in your industry).

• It’s almost never about you.• At least 80/20

In less than six months, they:• Cut $200,000 (90%) from

their marketing budget• 22,000+ Facebook “likes”• 170,000 + videos viewed• 300% Increase in monthly

blog visits• And they sold some boots.

Case Study: EasyCare Boots

Landing Pages

• Every Page is a landing page

• Keep the Text Concise and Easy to Scan

• Remove Links and Navigation to Maintain Focus

• TEST!

Copyright Equestrian Professional.com and CowDog Media all rights reserved.

Touch Points

When they…•Visit your website•Friend you on Facebook•Follow you on Twitter•Watch a Video on YouTube•Receive and email from you•Come in contact with your content (i.e. Read your articles or social media posts)

What are your calls to action?

Calls to Action

• Positioning– In copy, above the “scroll”, end of the article,

sidebar, in text• Keep it simple (EX: Download our FREE guide to X)• Use images rather than just text to make it stand out• Make the offer relevant to the page• TEST!

Page Layout

Calls to Action

• .

Calls to Action

Social Media

The Power of Social Media

• Reach Many• Build Relationships• Traffic, SEO, Page

Rank• Word of Mouth• Brand Engagement• Valuable Feedback

Email

Benefits of Email

• Attract better customers and more of them

• Stay in the minds of potential customers

• Educate, motivate and move current customers down more profitable paths

• Lists have tangible value – Example: Dover Saddlery, Advertisers

• Sales Funnel

Facebook

Best Practices

• Use an email service

• Subject Line - 35% of email recipients open email based on the subject line alone

• Link back to website – Marketing Hub

• Mobile phone friendly – 80.8 % check email on a mobile device (Hubspot Survey)

Email Service Providers

• Aweber

• Mail Chimp

*

Breeder & Sales Barns

Goals: Sell horses – Repeat Sales

Make Paid Advertising Pay off!– Landing Pages – drive to website when possible. Encourage leads to subscribe to your sales updates or newsletter.

Aggressively Build List Social MediaWebsite Traffic – Page for every horse, Keyword strategy and GET CONTACT info!

Provide Amazing Service so that your customers rave about you, buy more horses and send their friends.

Multiple Screens

• The 35- to 54-year-old age bracket is the most active mobile social users

• 400 million Facebook users access from a mobile phone, and those who do, are twice as active on social networks

• Equestrians are mobile.

Tools to Simplify Things

www.google.com/alerts

*

Google Alerts

*

Next Steps

• Written Goals

• Marketing Plan – Marketing Calendar

• Test. Measure. Test some more.

• Embrace Technology

• Take the Time to Learn Key Tools

• Ask for Help

• Get started!

Resources

• 150 Equestrian Marketing Tools and Jewels • Marketing Checklist• Marketing Calendar• Customer Surveys • Press Release How To and Examples• Social Media Guides• Webinar Replays • Private Consulting

Our Gift to You

Questions?