Did you know that 94% of all small businesses are in debt?

That’s an astonishing figure.

And it speaks volumes about how tough it really is to profit from a startup business in today’s economy.

As a business owner, you’re asked to wear many hats — CEO, HR Director, Accountant, Collection Agency, Customer Service Rep, and Marketer… not to mention being the expert in your field!

No one person can perform every single one of these duties effectively and letting just one of them slip can spell doom for an organization.

There is a lot of debate about which of these is most crucial to your business, but in all our research to date, we’ve discovered 9/10 times businesses aren’t profitable because they lack strategic marketing skills.

The truth is, better marketing leads to more revenue. And while the Beatles taught us that Money can’t buy you love… it can buy solutions to almost any type of business problem.

Every single business out there is in the marketing business. And there are 5 ways to dramatically increase success in your marketing efforts. Over the past 7 years, these are the areas where our clients have seen the most growth, often doubling and tripling their profits.

You cannot market to everyone.

When you market to everyone, you market to no one.

So, discovering who you market to may be the number one key to successful marketing.

What gets missed is how deep this customer knowledge should truly be.

You should be married to your customer. And that means knowing far more than simple customer demographics. At the center of EVERY marketing effort should be your customer’s:

Research is the holy grail of marketing. Because every marketing decision needs strong research to guide and support it.

Just like a spouse instinctively knows the best way to approach their partner, with research backing you, you’ll already know what to say, where to say it, and when to publish.

Without this solid foundation, every dollar you spend is paying to confirm or disprove your “hunches.” The time and money that is wasted in that approach could instead be spent on getting your product or service in front of the market.

There’s a market already out there clamouring for what you have. And it’s much cheaper to find them than to waste resources persuading disinterested buyers.

Every business solves a problem.

Some problems are huge (I need to find love, I need more money, I need to get healthy).

Some are more manageable (I need to decorate my apartment, I need my car fixed, I need something to entertain me this weekend).

Customers come to you to solve those problems. Most will not invest money until they know that you are going to move them closer to a solution.

The best way to do this is a lead magnet. A lead magnet has a few purposes:

The lead magnet is the best way to build your customer base. It is a simple exchange – you give them a solution to a problem they want solved, in return, they give you their contact details (usually email address).

A free report is a common example of a lead magnet. There are many different lead magnet types you can use. These include quizzes, short videos, discounts, trials, toolkits, and guides.

What all lead magnets have in common are the 3 fundamentals:

After collecting an email address, the next step is sending emails.

The email follow up sequence should follow a clearly defined path that takes your lead from prospect to buyer to frequent buyer.

Your email follow up should take your subscribers by the hand and lead them to what they want…and then sell them what they need.

This is done most elegantly with a sales funnel. Your ad attracts many customers, fewer opt-in to your lead magnet, and fewer still will buy. A sales funnel keeps the buyers engaged while gently weeding out the looky-loos and non-buyers.

By the time the buyers reach the end of your email sequence, they should be actively seeking what you are selling. They are excited to click the “buy” button.

And the best part is, a sales funnel, when done right, can be set to “autopilot” and convert leads to buyers and buyers to repeat customers silently in the background for years.

Either one works. You make the same $10,000 in each case, right? The difference is, with the second option you’ve built good will. And because they’ve invested a small amount, a good percentage will invest more. It looks something like this:

You’ve now doubled your money for the same ad. Plus, even more crucially, you created 100 lifelong customers instead of 10 one-time buyers. This could be worth thousands of dollars over the life of your business. These customers are more likely to buy again, less likely to refund, and more likely to refer even more customers into your pipeline.

About 20% of your subscribers, prospects or clients will always be ready to buy MORE from you.
These customers love what you do. They were excited to buy, excited to consume, and excited to recommend you to others.

Treating them as a one-off sale leaves them wanting more, and worse, leaves money on the table that should be yours.

Just like a restaurant offers a dessert and beverage menu to supplement their core offerings, you should have a “dessert menu” for your business, too.

You can double or triple your Customer Lifetime Value by giving them more offers, promotions, services and products to buy (which they happily will).

We call these extra products, services and offers your Back-End Offers.

Just a few examples of back-end products are bonus products, product add-ons, supplemental products, mastermind groups, or high-end coaching or mentoring.

But be warned: All tests are not created equal. Some have the potential to double or triple conversions, while others will only mean an incremental increase.

Marketing is much more than the sum of its parts.

It’s not simply Facebook ads, email sequences, and logos.

Marketing is a thread that runs through your entire business.

And a strategic, well-planned marketing system (not just a combination of marketing tactics) can bring in revenue automatically month after month and year after year — all the while constantly running silently in the background.

That’s what we do at the Neuro Media Agency. We can take you step-by-step through customer research, lead generation, email sequences, and back-end offers to create a seamless experience for your customer — resulting in high customer satisfaction, less frustration, and skyrocketing profits.

For example, I just released details to a new marketing funnel system that converts for me and my clients over and over again. This exact funnel system has already brought in in-excess of $854,233.54 for me and my private clients just this year alone. And it’s astonishing just how simple it really is.