Hey there, little Hydra

You make money in 5 different ways -

Sometimes it feels like a cash fountain…

Usually it feels like trying to ride a hydra.

At least you’re making money

but you’re not sure which Hydra head is in charge (or even if you want one head in charge?).

So in today’s issue, I’m going to take you through how to think about marketing in your company (and your company more broadly) when you have:

• multiple ways you’re making money

• lots of marketing channels you’re using (or are wanting to try)

• you’re selling a range of things under one umbrella (from books to memberships to a multi-feature SaaS product)

So you can make the most money with the least amount of marketing work.

If you’re already pretty clear on your audience, what you’re selling, and how to say it..jump right on down to how-to and example right ‘ere.

Ahem, but before we jump into that goodness….

Your golden goose might be fools gold

Your main income source? it might not be the best one for your company to grow on.

Your current strongest target audience? Might be real shaky ground to shoot from.

Your customers and clients are buying what they think you sell that will solve their problems.

But if you’re marketing energy is going into selling to an audience that’s not thrilled on buying and trying to sell something that isn’t that big of a problem solver…

Marketing and making money is always going to feel like a crapshoot.

So check your assumptions at the door and start asking questions of your customer interviews, surveys and sales calls.

These questions, to be precise,

How to check what to sell

• Show me how you use the product (quietly watch!) - then ask them about the features they seem to use the most

• How would you describe [service we did for you]?

• Why did you hire us?/ Buy the product?

You can either ask these questions directly in 1:1 calls, or ask them of your product data itself if you’re tracking support messages and product use cases in onboarding.

If you’re hearing:

• actually, that’s way too expensive for me (it’s your cheapest product)

• actually, i’m not [way you describe the customer] I’m [xyz]

You’re probably pushing to the wrong target audience.

If you’re hearing:

• I’m actually using [product/service] for a different use case

• I actually set my [system/approach/execution] up this way

You’re probably pushing the wrong use case or focusing on the wrong pivot point or feature set (and your sales process is probably off too).

If you’re hearing:

• “The bigger problem for me is actually something else.”

• “Oh, wait, i didn’t know the product could do that/you had that offer!”

• Yeah, I was surprised by [xyz]. I’d actually describe it more like [abc].

Then your messaging + offer combo is probably off.

Now look at what you’re selling the hardest

The feature you bring up first in sales calls, the package you talk about the most on your website, the thing your contrast CTA is shrieking about -

Are you selling to the audience that easily wants to and can pay you, and are you actually answering the biggest pain point, and doing it in the way they describe it?

*Deep breath*

Because if you’re not

• selling to the audience that easily wants to and can pay you

• actually honestly showing your product/service answers their stated biggest pain point

• talking about the pain points and fixes in their own words
  

Then you should consider a pivot.

And this is how you do that pivot (short version):

• Choose a new target audience

  • TLDR version

  • CTA → read this newsletter issue for more

• Reformat your offer structure or which product features you’re leaning into

• Change your messaging to sell that offer to that audience → how to fill out a messaging matrix

Or go through this fun little flow chart

So….about that marketing?

Sounds great Sophia, but I already have my audience, offer, and messaging locked down, I’m just struggling with how to marketing to everyone!

Now don’t let loose that sulphuric hydra breath at me just yet.

The hydra head you’re holding onto: The target audience that is saying “shut up and take my money”, the pain they can’t run away from, and your solution to said discomfort.

The salve for burning breath, if you will.

80% of your marketing efforts should go into selling that service/product to that audience.

• map out the buying process for that target audience

• figure out where the

20% can go to the other ones.

Huh?

Okay, okay, I see it’s ✨ Example Time ✨ 

Here’s what that 80/20 looks like in practice.

Say you have a tangly company that:

• sells books on dragon horticulture,

• gives workshops to dragon handlers on how to safely train and fly dragons,

• runs a paid community for professional dragon trainers,

• has a popular sponsored newsletter for dragon enthusiasts

• has an subscription-based app for tracking dragon health to manage a brood of dragons for dragon breeders

• planning on launching a paced cohort for new dragon handlers - but you’re not sure what topics to build the cohort curriculum around

You go through your research and find out that:

• your top audience is professional dragon trainers and

• their biggest pain points are around asking specific questions about their breeds behaviors and tendencies,

• which is best solved in the paid community.

Then 80% of your marketing should be to find more professional dragon trainers and get them into the paid community. And most of those pro dragon handlers find you via the newsletter or referrals.

• Brand: Your messaging should talk about how you can all of your detailed dragon questions answered by a great community in your paid community

• Website: The main audience your website should talk to is Dragon trainers who have specific breed questions

• Email: The reviews you should be most pushing to get are from Dragon trainers who are looking for a professional community

• Sales: Your sales motion should be primarily focused on dragon trainers and answering their objections

• Analytics: You should have the strongest analytics on each step of what it takes to

• Content + Distribution: Your referral program should be structured for the needs of Dragon Trainers

• Content + Distribution: Your “paid” marketing should be to sponsor Dragon Training academies and work with faculty to be the preferred community for their students

And all of your other offers should either lead into getting pro dragon trainers from other places to convert into the community….

OR have the marketing for them set on autopilot, so they make money, but they don’t take much of your focus.

Autopilot looks like this:

• Setting up automations to get newsletter subscribers, like automatically adding book buyers to the newsletter

• Setting up a “tell me about you” sequence in the app onboarding so that you can send email sequences that tell them about the other offers that are a good fit for them

• Creating landing pages for each of your offers that sell themselves - and leaving them there

• Building out just enough content to get SEO to work for you for workshop signups and setting a quarterly reminder to make updates to stay in the top rankings for them

• Having an automated communication sequence to ask for testimonials and referrals for each of your offers once someone hits their aha moments

• Setting a quarterly reminder to do some testing on the sequences, landing pages, and SEO so that it keeps making you money

And that Cohort launch plan looks like:

• Surveying your community to ask what topics they want to learn more about and what it would be worth it to them to pay

• Giving “buddy discounts” to a friend they invite to join the cohort with them

• Doing a concentrated push in your 5 best marketing channels for finding new handlers and not doing it in any of the channels that don’t drive - because you don’t have time for that

• Keeping the messaging in the newsletter clear on joining the community, but with the added incentive that community members get the most out of the new course you’re launching and get first dibs on the cohort seats. pick at the And making sure that they are staying in the newsletter

• They might join the community now, and then join the next cohort once they’re bought in on the community.

And doesn’t look like:

• trying to talk about the cohort on every possible marketing channel and having all of them come out poorly because you spread yourself too thin

• alienating your app users with too many push notifications for something their not interested in

• upping your unsubscribes from your email sequences because you keep pushing something that’s no use to them

• getting bad reviews on your book because people feel like it’s a marketing ploy for a course

• having tracking and numbers setup for every little thing and still have no idea what you’re looking at

• pour money into top of funnel strategies to get into more dragon interest meetings

All along you’re following your marketing foundations (hehehe did you think I’d forget to mention the foundations?) to make sure that you have the underpinnings of what you need.

Good little Hydra. 🐉

Want someone else to do allll of this from customer research to figuring out your audience, sales plan, marketing foundations for you and just tell you want to do next in your marketing?

Lucky you rider, I have a call for that. Let’s talk.

We’ll see you and your inbox next week

The dragon tamers ⚔️: Sophia 👩🏽‍💻, Aelia 🧕🏽, and Abhishek 🙋🏽‍♂️

Powered by…okay honestly we’re all just enjoying a relatively chill summer for the first time in years. You could call us sun Bask-ilisks. ☀️