The 3 Top Marketing Trends to help grow Your Business
In the natural world, it's not the most robust species who survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones who are most able to adapt to changes. It is the natural selection law at work, and it is evident playing out in business too.
As an entrepreneur, you have to be able be open to and to adapt for change to thrive and survive. Technological advancements and trends, as well as changes in the needs and expectations of your clients as well as changes to your competitors all have the potential to ruin your business if in a hurry. Instead of avoiding changes, you should get in front of it when it happens and adjust to it.
Now is a great time to build a business around your expertise
In every industry, consumers are searching for information to help them solve a problem or attain a particular outcome. This presents a huge chance for people to put the knowledge they have gained into programs, products, and services that can be sold at profits.
To put this into perspective In 2017, the world market for online courses (e-learning) was estimated at $255 billion ( World Economic Forum). It's not even counting the money that is used for coaching, consultation, professional advice, or non-fiction books.
But whether you're an author, speaker or trainer consultant, online course designer, or a service company, there's an emerging reality you must know about as you build your expert business.
Over the past several years, an enormous amount of information that is free or cheap has been made available on the internet. There are some that are great (and certain of it is just not as good) however the truth is that information no longer has any value in the way used to. In many industries the information is now an item of trade, meaning that selling information is becoming increasingly difficult.
Your customers likely don't need any more details. They have enough of that accessible to them already. What they need is someone who can assist them to apply the right data in the correct way,to solve their problem or achieve the result they'd like to achieve. What they require is transformation.
The beginning of Transformation Age
I don't know who is in charge of defining the era that we are in and if it were my decision I wouldn't call this as the Information Age anymore. I'd call it"the Transformation Age.
We are transitioning from our Information Age to the Transformation Age There are certain things you need to know in order to improve your company's performance, expand quicker, and have significant changes in the lives of other people by sharing your expertise and knowledge.
Trend 1: Building Community
The way of the past:Build a massive audience
The rise of social media has led many entrepreneurs to forget on the things that matter most. Instead of working on developing excellent products and services for their customers, they started focusing on vanity metrics such as the number of likes, followers, comments, shares and shares they get on their social media profiles.
As an entrepreneur, you do not need millions to be aware of who you are in order to establish your business to be successful, and you certainly don't need to be a household name. If you're not creating a global company (think Coca-Cola, Apple, Disney, etc.) there's no need for the whole world to know who you are.
The new way:Become the leader of an entire community
Instead of creating an enormous audience, change your goal to become a leader of a community with a segment. Determine your ideal clientele and then create a place where they can interact with each other, share thoughts, help one another as well as reach out to your directly.
Facebook is leading the trend of creating online communities. Earlier in 2018, Mark Zuckerberg announced a major change to how they display posts in their News Feed. As time goes on, Facebook will be severely restricting the organic reach for posts from Facebook Pages. Instead, they're encouraging publishers to develop valuable interactions that build communities.
Related:
"Those companies that have strong tribes that have formed an actual community are likely to be able to stand out, while those that don't are going to need to get their act together quickly."
- Scott Oldford
Trend 2: Premium pricing
The old way: Start with inexpensive products, then increase the price of your products to attract customers.
Over the past few years, we've witnessed a lot of early-stage entrepreneurs struggle to create what is commonly referred to as the "Ascension Model" of services and products.
If you're using the Ascension Model, you start with a low-cost product (like books or a short course), and then you upsell your customers to more expensive products and services such as coaching, consulting, and live activities. Here's what this can appear like:
The thing that doesn't work is trying to sell someone a course instead of what they actually want is private coaching. Likewise, trying to market private coaching services to someone who wants you to do all the work on their behalf, or trying to sell a conference ticket to someone that wants to join a mastermind.
Every one of these types of products and programs appeals to a different type of consumer with distinct priorities and spending budgets. Although upselling is a great idea on paper, some consumers have a clear idea of what they are looking for and in most situations doesn't mean it's your most cost-effective offer.
The way of the future:Start with high-touch offers with premium prices
The market shifts from the demands for information to demand for transformation. People need help to achieve results and are willing to be willing to pay for the help they need.
To keep this in mind it is not advisable to sell your customers the least expensive item first. This is with the goal of upselling customers on a higher-priced item or service later on at some time in the future.
In particular, if you're still in the early stages of building your expert business We recommend that you offer a service that is high-touch (coaching, consulting, done-for-you service, etc.) prior to the time you start selling information products that are less costly including books and classes. Once you reach your capacity of working one-on-1 with clients, then start creating products to help more people.
What early-stage entrepreneurs often don't realize is that it can be hard to sell cheap ebooks or online courses to a large number of customers effectively. If you've just started your company, concentrate on selling your more expensive products first. You can then use the profits generated by those sales to finance the creation and the promotion of lower-cost items.
Trend 3 The Customer Experience
The traditional way:Acquire as many customers as you possibly can.
Most entrepreneurs commit the error of focusing all of their energy on getting new customers, at their expense in giving a good experience to the clients. Consequently, many of their clients never purchase from them in the future or recommend other customers to them. This creates an endless (and costly!) cycle of having to constantly find new clients to keep running their the game.
In the event that competition in your sector increases, along with expectation of the prospective audience, neglecting to provide your customers with a positive experience before and after the purchase will have a detrimental impact on the profitability and longevity of your business.
The latest way:Help your customers achieve the success they desire
There's a particular outcome that customers desire and appreciate. Your customers will see that your product or service is just a means to get there, and is probably to be just one option among many options that promise to help attain the same goal.
Thus, while getting new customers is crucial helping your clients is even more important and crucial for the success and growth of your business. If you do not aid your customers to achieve the results they're looking for with your service or product, they likely won't remain with you for long.
The most successful entrepreneurs of today focus on understanding the unique challenges and expected results of their customers, and are creating experiences that aid their customers to overcome the obstacles they face and reach their goals. They're putting a premium on customer experience and success.
Related:
"We're not here solely to convince people to purchase our products. We want them see the change and the effect and the stories ."
-- Nick Unsworth
Find out the particular methods to assist you in adapting to these new trends
There's never been a better time to build an organization by sharing your knowledge expertise with others. Every platform, tool, and resources that can be needed to build a business are at your disposal as well as an enormous market that can benefit from your expertise and knowledge and will spend money for it.
While thousands of experts in the field and entrepreneurs continue to build their businesses in the coming years, only those who build a reputation for having successful customers will be at an elite position in their industry. If you are willing to embrace and adjust to the trends that we've discussed in this post We are sure that you'll become one of the few!