Today’s topic is about how you can buy traffic through multi-channel marketing. I’ve always said that there really is almost an unlimited way to buy the attention that you need—marketing is a game of attention after all. And when you’re looking at launching a new business, you need to be grabbing as much targeted attention as you possibly can, and the keyword there is targeted attention.
We want to make sure that you’re grabbing those people that are most interested based on the personas through multi-channel marketing.
A Quick Recap
We’re getting to the end, there are a couple of episodes left on our continuation of how to launch and market a business from scratch and we’re using a childcare center as an example.
Previously, we talked about the three biggest places that I would suggest you put your ad dollars in, and that would be:
- YouTube
Facebook allows you to massively target very, very specifically while Google is targeting based on searches—a little bit more of buyer intent. YouTube, on the other hand, allows you to essentially push the whole commercial aspect so it’s kind of like having little mini TV commercials, but really targeted, stuffed with easy calls to action.
Social Media Marketing Limitations
Essentially, I like to start with those three platforms first for your multi-channel marketing efforts.
However, one of the challenges in being a local business is that you’re going to kind of hit certain limits. There are only so many eyeballs that are in a geographic area on Facebook. There are only so many people that are searching for a preschool center near me that are in your geographic area.
YouTube allows you to be a little bit broader, and you could be grabbing attention all within a geographic area. Same thing with Facebook. However, you might come into a situation where you want to continue to drive more eyeballs and as you get closer and closer to opening up the business and again, in this case, a childcare center, I need you and want you to be more aggressive. I want to make sure that you’re grabbing attention from people at any place that you possibly can.
Amplifying Direct Mail Marketing
What ends up happening is all of this multi-channel marketing and all of this online traffic generation is going to amplify the direct mail stuff that we talked about. I’m going to do an episode that’s coming up very soon about leveraging flyers and door hangers.
So all that stuff is going to amplify and it really to me is a great situation—if you’re able to be showing up everywhere where that persona that you’re looking for, sees you, everywhere. They go to Facebook, they see your ad. They see you on YouTube even when they’re looking at other videos. They’re seeing the flyer in their mailbox, for example. They are literally seeing you everywhere and anywhere.
Choosing Other Marketing Channels
After you’ve really started getting YouTube, Google and Facebook going I’m going to give you some other platforms that you’d want to consider for your multi-channel marketing efforts. And with all of these platforms, your ad should essentially mimic the type of ads and creatives that are going to work on that platform.
I’m not going to advocate right now that you start to run ads on a platform like Tik Tok or Snapchat. But if you were to run on one of those platforms, it would make sense to make sure that your ad kind of fits in with the vibe on that particular platform.
Instagram Marketing
When I start to look at what are some of the other platforms, I like to look at what are some of the other big social networks, so I’d want you to consider Instagram advertising. Instagram is owned by Facebook, so you can run really nice ads on Instagram—you can run story ads, for example. You can have nice visual pictures that are going to grab their attention, similar to what you would be doing with Facebook.
You could do the same thing on Pinterest which has an advertising platform as well. So you could be using that platform to be driving targeted people back to your center. And with everything, you want to make sure that everything is dialed into a trackable call to action.
Consolidating Social Media Marketing Channels
I would go to Instagram after you’ve leveraged those three platforms then I would consider Pinterest. From there, I would also look at Twitter. Twitter is still around, it’s still a good place to grab inexpensive ads. And with everything, you can be targeted to certain geographics, and you can make sure that you’re continuing to promote content, your stories, and the calls to action activities, similar to the strategy that I taught you—the whole three by three.
Now when you’ve exhausted those, so now you could potentially have six platforms running for your multi-channel marketing measures —you’re grabbing all the attention. Those main social media platforms are:
- YouTube
And to be honest, that’s already a lot of platforms to be running at one time.
The only other place that I would encourage you then to take a look at and there are a lot of different, I guess ways to teach you this. But you can also buy ads on native platforms.
Marketing In Native Platforms
What I mean by the native is that you could be advertising on platforms like Fox, CNN, or something along those lines.
There are other platforms like outbrain.com or Taboola. And what you’re able to do is you’re able to really focus more on content-driven ads that show up on again, news websites, or even on Gmail, for example. So I mean, Business Insider, NBC, The Weather Channel, USA Today, Fox, CBS, and all these different platforms.
Content-Driven Marketing
The neat thing is, you’re not just paying at a national level so that you’re grabbing eyeballs from all over the globe, but you’re saying, “Hey, if anyone is visiting the weather channel that’s in this 10-mile radius, then I would like to show my ad.” And you can again, drive them to articles to landing pages, or even YouTube videos so you could leverage Taboola, for example, to drive traffic from USA Today, for example, back over to your YouTube video.
Videos that talk about your grand opening or “why you decided to open up this center”, “why you’re doing this”, “what you’re up to”, or ones that talk about some of the families that have already enrolled. Basically, you’re able to start to really drive this story-driven content. And when you then start to move into places like Taboola, that’s typically the place that I’m looking, you literally have unlimited eyeball potential.
Building Brand Authority
Not only are you now controlling and dominating all of the social networks, but now you’re again grabbing everywhere, in all these different places. What’s also happening is it’s elevating up your brand authority. So you’re on sites like Bloomberg, USA Today, NBC Fox, or MSN Business Insider, even though you’re an ad.
So whether that ad, again is a YouTube video, an article, or a landing page, you’re still on that website. It just elevates you that you’re on those authoritative sites. That is the place where you literally can just buy unlimited attention. And with everything you want to be tracking the attention, you want to be looking at those metrics.
Marketing Budget
The holy grail of your multi-channel marketing initiatives then is how much attention is the cost to get a lead? And then if you were looking at the school, how many leads does it take to equate to some kind of virtual tour or a phone call? How many of those turned into pre-enrollments or deposits? What you can do is just literally skyrocket your investments.
And this is where I often get into big conversations where someone will ask what should their marketing budget be? You should be able to then invest almost an unlimited budget to make sure that you’re getting all those eyeballs. Your budget should not be capped. If you know that you can put $1,000 in, generate 100 leads, for example, or 10 leads. Out of those 10, three of them have given you a deposit of $1,000 over the lifetime value.
That’s the big piece to understand here. That lifetime enrollment could be worth $20,000- $30,000 or more. So I would do that all day every day investing $1,000 to get 10 leads, and three enrollments that are now worth potentially $20,000 or $30,000 over the course of a couple of years. The math on that is just a no-brainer.
Final Words
But what ends up happening is a lot of small businesses are not able to buy enough customers to really give them that momentum. If you know the math, however, you’re not just looking at putting $1,000 in and expecting to be getting $1,000 or more out every single month. Let’s say your deposit is only $500. And then they’re gonna start with you in three months, you have to be able to weather that financial investment. But when you know your numbers, you literally can buy unlimited attention.
My recommendation is always to focus on the top three platforms, then I go to the next three social networks. And then and only then would you look at something like Taboola to really buy even more unlimited eyeballs. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. I look forward to you tuning back in tomorrow.
Get out there, make a change, and take some action.