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Marketing an Online Business without Social Media

in Case Studies

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What happens when an entrepreneur doesn’t want to be on social media? In fact, what about a business owner who doesn’t want to be on social media and is concerned about their current employer finding out that they’re starting a business? How do we market such a business?

This was the latest problem that I solved with one of my clients. My client is consciously not on social media due to the toxicity and ethical dilemma of supporting such services. Now, that may change someday, but at the time of his launch he was not on social media.

To further complicate the situation, he also had to be cautious about how public he was about his business within his inner circle. That inner circle of friends, family, and colleagues which is typically so important when launching a business.

As a result, we had to skip the launch party. We also had to skip any social media advertising and get a little bit creative.

Here’s what we did to draw traffic to his new website and begin generating leads.

1. Other Business Groups

There exist alternative platforms available for business owners that are not the typical Facebook and LinkedIn groups. In order to market his business initially, we opted for requesting feedback on his website to make sure that we had done everything right. We had conducted primary market research via interviews during the development of the business plan, but with the website done we wanted to make sure that we had hit the mark.

How could one get valuable feedback and potential leads when we couldn’t ask his primary social circle for feedback and support? This is where the private groups come in. Since he is not on most social media platforms, we decided to look towards business groups that were either proprietary, or hosted on Slack or Discord. That way his primary social circle would not discover the posts.

Each post would simply request feedback on his new website. In this way, he was both reaching out to potential leads and getting feedback on his website which was valuable market research. This built critical early traffic to the site, which is additionally important to Google ranking. The campaign also announced that his business existed in the first place.

2. Guest Blogging & Podcasting

As you read in my previous case study, the main work of a business owner post-launch is in telling the world that they exist. The above feedback posts was only a month-long campaign. We had to turn on my client’s lead generation pipeline, and without social media.

So we got creative.

I advised him to develop his free download or giveaway during the feedback request campaign. That way, as he interacted with wider circles, he could respond to aligned conversations with his free resource. This drove more traffic to the website and started his email list.

This also helped encourage third party traffic to the site. Here’s what I mean by third party: when we interact with strangers online, it is between us and a second party, another person or group of people. Without social media, we are reliant on a second party and their contacts, which is the third party for my client. We looked to guest blogging and being a guest on podcasts. The owner of the blog or podcast is the second party, and their audience is the third party.

When when we are speaking to third party listeners or readers, more is needed in order to garner trust and interest. That’s where the free resource comes in. It is a low barrier to entry for interested parties to get to know your work better without any risk to themselves. They learn how mindful and supportive your work is in the free download, and then are more likely to accept a consultation invitation.

This is where the bulk of the post-launch work laid for my client. Blog posts and podcast episodes peak in viewership within the first week of publishing, after which they fall into obscurity across the internet. This created consistent work for him to start marketing himself in order to break into the social consciousness at large and teach people that he exists while providing deep value every step of the way.

 

3. Speaking

My client really enjoys speaking. Once we developed initial traffic and interest to the website and created his free download system, we began expanding his marketing to being a guest speaker at events where his target market is in the audience. Such events closes the gap to speaking directly to second party groups.

At such events, he is able to offer his free resource as the invitation at the end of his speech. This creates momentum from people who had just listened to his speech and brings them to his website, thus becoming more familiar with his work and accept the invitation to a complimentary consultation.

4. Quora

One of my colleagues in Los Angeles built her career on Quora, and I thought this technique a perfect fit for my client. Here’s how.

  1. Build a comprehensive profile on Quora.com. Include as much information about your work as possible and link to your website.
  2. Select the forums that are most relevant to your target market. This is where a lot of people lose out. They choose forums that feel relevant to them, rather than their target market. You can still get traction in doing so, but it will take longer for you to see results.
  3. Begin answering questions that are right in line with your target market. In the case of my client, we used the phrases and comments that emerged most often during his market research interviews to indentify meaningful opportunities on Quora. 

Many people just answer questions on Quora in a few sentences. My colleague, however, realized that writing an answer in blog form with headers and sections (like this blog you are reading) draws better attention, looks more authritative, and lays the ground work for large guest post syndicates such as Forbes or Entrepreneur to invite you to work with them. That is how my colleague was discovered and built a career of paid blog work on the largest syndicates across the web.

That outcome would behoove my client as he loves writing, but building his authority on Quora and attracting new traffic to his website from strangers was the main goal. Quora posts syndicate via Google forever, and they backlink to one’s profile and website, amplifying the business’ standing across the web.

If you don't want to be on social media in the traditional sense, there still are plenty of ways to #market an online business. Click To Tweet

So there you have it. If you don’t want to be on social media in the traditional sense, there still are plenty of ways to market an online business. As you go through your initial business launch, there are even more options than what my client and I created. This was a plan customized to him and his upcoming goals, and it worked like a charm. If you’d like to brainstorm a custom plan for your business marketing, I’m only a Zoom call away.

What Clients Say

"There's one thing I regret about working with Veronica - not having met her sooner! She had a clear perspective on the challenges I was facing and was quick to offer me the latest tools for my projects."

— Niki A., Executive Coach

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How to Survive the Post Launch Drop

in Case Studies

SCALING:lab Blog

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There is a drop off that most entrepreneurs new printers experience at the beginning of their businesses. Unfortunately, it’s not talked about enough.

During the building of the business, there is a flurry of activity. We are working on the website, creating a social media presence, developing branding, and doing market research. Everything feels within the control of the new entrepreneur (aka. newpreneur) and they see the results of their actions immediately.

For many, this is an exciting period of dreaming about what is to come.

If you have been open for business for any amount of time, you know that there is a drop off after the business has launched. For many entrepreneurs, it results in a moment of depression and even Imposter Syndrome.

The amount of work has not changed, but the time from action to results is radically different. You see, when we launch a business we transition from taking action that has immediate results and that is 100% within our control, into sales and marketing. Sales and marketing is a much slower process because the results come when others take action.

While we create the business we build out the social media plan. We create a lead generation pipeline. We might even host a launch party for the business (I hope you do!). But afterward, each time we take action, we must wait for the results.


For one of my clients, this was catastrophic. She was already battling impostor syndrome. Her business idea was driven by the mission to exact change in a male dominated, often cold and exacting, industry. She had the right idea. She had a beautiful website. She already even had case studies, something most newpreneurs lack.

But she was dealing with fear about visibility and Impostor Syndrome. When the transition came from building the business to marketing the business, that fear of visibility combined with the drop off and amplified her Imposter Syndrome. She found it very difficult to move forward, despite any explanation that this was normal.

When the transition came from building the business to marketing the business, that fear of visibility combined with the drop off and amplified her #ImposterSyndrome. Click To Tweet

If you are reading this and you are a newpreneur, I urge you to prepare yourself before the drop off. There will be a flurry of excitement from your friends and family, and even your closest inner circle of acquaintances, when you launch your business. At that point, the business is filling a vacuum.

After that excitement, it will take time for leads to galvanize. Your job as a newpreneur, as a new business owner, is to formularize your marketing activity in order to keep the pipeline open so that the leads can come in. Your job after launching the business is teaching the world that you exist, why you exist, and why they need you.

Instead of staring at the metric of leads generated or leads converted in the early days of marketing your business, focus your energy on how many actions you take to market. Focus on your activity, just like you were when you were building the company. The results will come. Momentum will build, as long as you don’t give up.

If you’re worried your marketing plan isn’t working, let’s chat. I offer a complimentary 15min Zoom session to my subscribers because I know how insidious second guessing can be to our mental health. I’ve got you.

What Clients Say

"There's one thing I regret about working with Veronica - not having met her sooner! She had a clear perspective on the challenges I was facing and was quick to offer me the latest tools for my projects."

— Niki A., Executive Coach

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Redesigning an Event Series for Increased Participation and Income

in Case Studies

SCALING:lab Blog

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“I’m really concerned, Veronica,” Ange confided during one of our sessions. “My events are always full and interactive. But this time, no one spoke. No one networked. It was like presenting to ghosts. Have I lost my touch?”

Ange (not her real name) and I had been working together for several months at the time of this conversation. We have pivoted her business to focus on her niche in a more targeted manner, and this was her first workshop presentation post-pivot.

Understandably, she was worried that the pivot had destroyed her business. So I got curious.

“Had you done this workshop before?”

“No,” she said. “This was the first time.”

Great, I thought. That means that the issue was isolated to this particular workshop.

“Did you use the same format as usual?”

Ange admitted that she had not. She typically conducts an ice breaker or some other initial networking activity to begin her workshops, but this one was already jam-packed with information. “I didn’t want to wear them out or run out of time.”

But what was the topic?

“Identifying your dream and building a plan to achieve it.”

That told me everything I needed to know.

Ange is a mindful, empathetic events organizer. She works hard to ensure her attendees have a transformational experience. But in this case, she had taken out the one thing that would make her attendees feel comfortable enough to share and collaborate on a very sensitive topic.

“Though most of your community is very dynamic and excited to share, in this case they won’t feel safe enough to show their most vulnerable selves if they haven’t had the chance to build trust through an ice breaker,” I explained.

But Ange still had an issue. Ice breakers and networking would extend an already very dense workshop. She hadn’t priced the workshop accordingly and was worried it would all get out of hand.

As an entrepreneur coach, this showed me a great opportunity.

“Ange, you’re telling me that you packed the workshop so tight that you don’t even have time for a five-minute ice breaker. What that says to me is that the workshop is too dense as it is. Let’s take this opportunity to break it into two parts. You can slow down the information, add more ice breakers and networking, and charge more.”

“But won’t it look weird to have a single two-part workshop when all the rest of mine are one-off events?” Ange worried.

“Let’s take a step back,” I said. “Do you have any structure or orientation for how your workshops thread together? Are they organized along your Client Journey in any way?”

Ange shook her head. Another opportunity!

“Let’s organize your events, then. We can label them as ‘beginner, intermediate, and advanced’ according to the amount of information in each. That will give your attendees a sense of orientation, firm up your client journey, and allow you to charge more for the ‘advanced’ workshops!”

Ange loved it. In one short session we were able to both identify and resolve the issue she experienced in one workshop AND transform her events to invite even more enthusiastic attendees to work with her.

Key Takeaways:

  • A clear path forward helps clients stay oriented and involved
  • Labeling events or courses creates greater income opportunities
  • Participant interaction within workshops is never time wasted
  • Study success AND study challenges — they both can open massive doors!

What Clients Say

"There's one thing I regret about working with Veronica - not having met her sooner! She had a clear perspective on the challenges I was facing and was quick to offer me the latest tools for my projects."

— Niki A., Executive Coach

BOOK A CALL
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How We Rescued (and amplified) a Book Launch Marketing Plan

in Case Studies

SCALING:lab Blog

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Become a SCALING:lab Member and receive the articles + case studies a week before they’re live to the public..

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*** Articles are first published to SCALING:lab — sign up to get the first look. ***

Sarah [not her real name] came to me for coaching to develop her consulting business, speaking career, and strategically use her new book to launch into both containers. Throughout our coaching period together, there was one problem after another with her publisher, and we were constantly working to pivot around the mistakes or misleading information that the publisher had provided.

The Moment of Panic

This came to a head as launch day neared. The agreed-upon plan was to print advanced reader copies on the 1st of December in order to give the sales team time to market the book to stores to receive orders before the holidays. It would also give Sarah time to send advanced reader copies to reviewers and the press. We would then hit the ground running in early January with a book launch date in early February.

The print date came and went. The distributor had not bought into that plan. We’re not sure if the publisher did not communicate well with the distributor, or if the distributor was a bad choice and went rogue. However, there were no books to begin the sales process at this critical juncture.

When my client contacted the distributor, they simply stated they had chosen to wait to print the advanced copies in mid-January — only weeks before launch and not enough time for stores to make their orders.

This left a massive gap in the marketing plan for the book, especially due to the looming holiday season. The book would launch to crickets if we didn’t do something fast.

Time to Get Disruptive

Marketing a book is a critical part of being an entrepreneurial author. We had to make a plan that would fill the marketing gap but not create excessive costs outside the original budget. It also had to be something we could launch fast because we were a week into December and already behind.

What I created for this client was a postcard campaign. The postcards would contain the book cover, a synopsis, and the contact info for the sales team. This gave the sales team a physical showcase item to replace the physical books.

However, that created another problem. If the postcards were used in different regions, that meant different sales person’s information needed to be provided for each region. We didn’t have time or the budget to develop small runs of postcards with unique contact information.

The solution was to create a universal postcard that forwarded interested parties to a sales team page on the book’s website.

Finally, my client was concerned the sales team either would not know about the book in time or wouldn’t care about the postcard solution to make up for the lost time. Each salesperson has several books that they are promoting at one time. We needed the sales team on our side and we needed them to be ready to help us when the advanced reader copies came out.

We decided to send them all holiday presents of bourbon-filled chocolate. Not only was the team happy to receive a gift, but it also made my client memorable, so when they finally had the book in hand in January, they were invested in its success.

So what happened?

Not only did the postcard idea help bridge the gap in the marketing plan, but it also created an entirely new marketing plan. The distributor, the sales team, the publicist, and even the publisher were so enthused about the postcard idea that they all requested a batch of their own. We bought a larger run of postcards, saving some money on the individual cost, and garnering the book greater attention than originally planned.

This client is both an author and a consultant. We were building a marketing plan for both, and so the success of this book was critical. Knowing that I helped her to pivot as fast as possible and bring the book to success is exactly the work that I love to do.

If you have a book in the works and you’re not sure how to fit it into your business plan, or you need support to pivot a marketing plan fast, I’d be happy to talk to you. Let’s schedule an intro call.

What Clients Say

"There's one thing I regret about working with Veronica - not having met her sooner! She had a clear perspective on the challenges I was facing and was quick to offer me the latest tools for my projects."

— Niki A., Executive Coach

BOOK A CALL
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What Clients Say

“There’s one thing I regret about working with Veronica – not having met her sooner! She had a clear perspective on the challenges I was facing and was quick to offer me the latest tools for my projects.”

— Niki A., Executive Coach

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Hi! I’m Veronica.

I’m an anthropreneur passionate about leveraging the tools of entrepreneurship for a better life and world (without burnout). Did you know that a significant amount of business owners choose entrepreneurship to improve their mental health and wellness?

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