Can "relationship marketing" really help your business grow and sell more?
Are you wanting to grow leads on your website and have a more strategic inbound marketing plan?
Then this is the place for you! This episode will focus on relationship and inbound marketing tactics for small and medium sized businesses.
I'm joined this week by Jessika Phillips. She is Founder of Now Marketing Group in Lima, OH, where she serves as President and the lead Inbound Marketing Evangelist. NOW Marketing Group is a creative, “take notice” Internet Marketing Agency & HubSpot Partner whose mission is to help your business build long-lasting relationships with your ideal audience.
It's all about keeping it real and practical here at Halftime Mike! Listen in for "doable" tactics that can help you run your business today!
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Relationship Marketing - was first defined as marketing that focuses on customer retention and long term satisfaction rather than focus on quick sales. It’s now evolved to meaning creating a focus on the whole buyers journey… so learning about who you can help and delighting them before they buy from you to creating a buying experience that will build long time loyalty and advocates for your business.
Inbound Marketing - "I like to say Inbound marketing is about being a magnet not a bullhorn." Inbound marketing refers to marketing activities that bring visitors in, rather than marketers having to go out to get prospect's attention. it’s about earning the attention of customers, making your company easy to be found drawing people to your website by producing interesting content.
When you put inbound marketing and relationship marketing together you have a full business SMARTKETING Funnel - (Jessika's term!)… which means all of your sales and marketing working smart. With relationship marketing and inbound marketing working together you can focus on who your brand is as a whole which will determine who you hire, what your your goals are, and the types of vehicles you will use to attract, convert and delight your ideal prospects.
It helps you focus well on how you’re going to treat someone once they visit your website.
Bluffton University story (gotta hear it all to learn firsthand how this works for a brand!)
The 1o-4-1 Rule: Share 10 items in your social media posts from others (content that is great and that others will find helpful). 4 items that promote your blog and site; and 1 that is a direct link to a landing page or opt-in that is part of your Inbound Strategy. More on the 10-4-1 Rule here >
It does take time to develop a plan and integrate, but really it’s already building on the philosophy of who the brand was originally created to be and just putting an actionable strategy behind it!
The rules of SEO and buying behavior have dramatically shifted in the last few years. This demands a new strategy and one that helps a business draw in their ideal audience. It's about becoming the source of great information that people search out to find answers. Once they come and get their answer from you, they can keep coming back!
Real Estate company example shared in the podcast about they are implementing and seeing results from an Inbound strategy.
First start thinking about who your brand is- your “why” - not what you do or how you do it, but why you do what you do.
Start writing down adjectives to describe your company and it’s culture. Put together a culture deck on who you hire that will guide you on hiring individuals that will be advocates of your brand not just fulfill a duty in the office.
But then really start thinking about who you can help most and who you can’t. Do this by building buyer personas around the people you can help and negative personas for the people you can’t. By developing peronas you will know truly who is your ideal audience and what makes them tick. By knowing who they are and what makes them tick you can begin developing your whole business around what experience that person would expect to have with your business including the types of content they would find helpful online and what will allow them to build a "know, like and trust relationship" with you.
1. “Make your marketing so useful people would pay you for it.” – Jay Baer
2. Branding is what people say about you, after you leave the room -Unknown
3. “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.” – Simon Sinek (video below!)
Bonus: “The best marketing strategy ever: CARE.” ~Gary Vaynerchuk
Be human and show you care!
As noted, Jessika is an Inbound Marketing Evangelist and founder of NOW Marketing Group.
Jessika’s creative enthusiasm in building relationships together with her passionate, savvy group paved the way for a very young company of 4 years (started in Lima, Ohio in 2010) to grow by leaps and bounds in the internet and social media marketing industry.
Their motto is to help businesses to be found, be social, and be useful by offering a program where businesses are having a two-way conversation with their clients online.
Their marketing anthems by which made a number of their clients take flight includes:
“No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care” 
“Facts tell and stories sell”
“Being a magnet works better than being a bullhorn. “
“People buy from who they know, like and trust. When you’re authentic in telling your company story, you will attract the right audience to buy from you.”
“When you attract the right audience, they love working with you, you love working with them, and they love telling their friends about their relationship with your business!”
Jessika Phillips Social Media
Now Marketing Group Social Media
I'm a Indiana Hoosier native where basketball is the top sport. Every team heads to the locker room at halftime to evaluate the first half and create a updated plan for the second half. That plan includes adjustments based on reviewing what worked and what didn't. The "halftime" is a key review point where the game stops, the team pulls away to huddle in the locker room away from the fans, and they come out prepared and ready to succeed in the second half.
That's what this podcast is all about, taking the time to pull away for bit to evaluate, learn, and set some strategies for your business to succeed in the second half. Join me by subscribing and let me be your "business halftime" to help you find great success going forward!
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I had the privilege to be a keynote speaker at a Now Market Group event "Social Lima" this past summer. As part of the promotion, Jessika was able to get us a digital billboard in Lima, OH. I was pumped for my first "billboard" exposure! So even in the rain and evening fading to night, this pic captures a bit of our time on the big screen!
