Chapter 2:
Your Digital Stack: What Entrepreneurs Should Spend Their Money On (and in what order).

There are so many options out there when it comes to marketing your business online. With all those choices, it's hard to know what the most effective ways to spend your business' marketing budgets are. 

After years of working with businesses and helping them with their online marketing, I've compiled a ton of data that has lead me to know exactly what works and what doesn't. Putting that data into practice has lead our clients to being extremely successful with their online marketing.

Businesses that are successful marketing themselves online (and don't overspend) have mastered something that we call the "Digital Stack".

This "Digital Stack" is a term that we came up with to describe the order that you should implement certain online marketing tactics so that you squeeze every dollar of value out of everything that you're doing online. 

When you hear a business owner say that they failed using a certain type of marketing online, it is usually because they used a technique that didn't have a good foundation.

For example, it doesn't make a lot of sense to run a Facebook Ad campaign to generate leads for a business if the business has a website and/or Facebook Page that doesn't look great. This campaign typically fails because prospective customers like to do additional research when they see an offer on Facebook. If they see an offer, and then go look at a web page or Facebook Page that looks like your nephew built it in 1995, that doesn't make them want to actually claim the offer they saw on Facebook.

I've seen a ton of business owners who have run a special offer with Facebook Ads (on their own) that ultimately failed at first due to them not having their "digital house in order". In short, their brand looked terrible when people did just a little extra checking on them (because their website and Facebook page weren't optimized).

We ended up running a nearly identical Facebook campaign when they signed up with us, but with one big difference.

The big difference was that we laid the groundwork for their campaign before we ran it. We made sure that their website and Facebook page looked great before we ran the campaign. When potential customers saw their ad, they got a good impression of the business on their other properties and followed through with claiming the offer because of it.

With that said, in what order should you setup your Digital Marketing Activities?

Your "Digital Stack" (What order should you do things?)

As you can see from the Infographic above, the order in which you decide to build your business' digital marketing presence is important.

Let's walk through what techniques you should be implementing, the order you should be doing it in, and why.

Stage 1: The Foundation

Making Sure You look Good When They Look for You.

It's important to understand what happens when a prospective customer hears about your business from a friend, a radio ad, the newspaper, or from any other place you might come up.

Whether it be from a referral or any other marketing channel, the typical person will do a little pre-research on your business before they ever pick up the phone or walk through your front door. Before anyone decides to do business they typically do two things.

The two ways prospective clients research you:

1) They search for you on Google.

First they're going to head over to Google and they are going to check out your website. You need to make sure that your website is doing some key things and that it looks a certain way. We cover all of that here.

2) They search for you on Facebook

Second (and sometimes first) people are going to type in the name of your business on Facebook and see what's happening there. People go to your website to get basic information, they search for you on Facebook because they want to get a peak at "what is actually happening on the inside". I cover more on why your Facebook page has to look great and must be active right here.

Stage 2: The Business Drivers

Getting More Business through the Door.

Once you have a great website and have your Facebook page posting content daily, you officially have a foundation laid for your practice to start reaching out for more business through your digital assets. If you didn't have the foundation laid, your lead generating activities (Facebook Ads and Email Newsletters) could fall flat when people did a little research on you, after seeing your ad or emails.

With your foundation laid, you want to focus your attention on two "business driving" activities. One of the activities is designed to get more of your existing customers through the door (Email newsletters). The other is designed to get new prospects through the door (Facebook Ads).

The two ways to drive more business through the door:

1) Email Newsletters to Existing Customers

One of the easiest ways to get more money coming into your business is to get existing customers to come back in and spend more money for services  or products that they need. So many business owners and managers forget this, but it's as easy as sending a reminder via email. The secret is to make sure that your email newsletter is something that contains value in itself. I cover more on how to create an email that drives more income into your business right here.

2) Facebook Ads to New Potential Customers

One of the easiest ways to reach the kinds of people that would be a perfect new customer is through the power of Facebook ads. Unfortunately, most businesses fail with Facebook Ads because they have no idea how to setup the kind of "sales funnel" that works well with this medium. I cover exactly how we successfully use Facebook ads with our clients right here.

Stage 3: The Domination Strategies

How to Become Number 1 in Your Market

Once you have all the Foundation components (Website and Active Facebook Page) and are effectively driving more income generating business with things like Email Newsletters and Facebook Ads, it's time to focus on the things that allow you to dominate your local marketing.

These technique are a little more technical and take a little more time to implement properly, but allow you to be years ahead of your competition. We focus on two main "advanced strategies" to help our clients dominate their local markets.

The two advanced Digital Marketing Strategies that Allow you to Dominate your Competition:

1) Facebook Messenger Bots

What if you could have a sales person out on Facebook 24 hours a day looking for people who need your services and reaching out to them with an offer that would get them to come in to your business? Facebook Messenger Bots are the next best thing (and they don't ever sleep). We have had amazing success with Facebook Messenger Bots. You can see an example of how we use them right here.

2) Search Engine Optimization (AKA: Being Loved by Google)

One of the most important digital marketing techniques (but one of the most misunderstood) is getting Google to fall in love with your business. Search Engine Optimization is a long term investment in your business, but it's one that is important to make. I'll show you exactly how we help our clients rank for those all important "business generating keywords" right here. 

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