Hey there, my fabulous listener, welcome to episode 179 of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

Thank you for lending me your ears today – I know you have lots of choices, so I sincerely appreciate me being one of them!

If you’re enjoying this podcast – I’d love to you take a screenshot and share it on your socials and tag me in it.  How cool would that be!

Don’t forget you can get the show notes for this podcast at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/179

Before we get into my sensational guest this week, I wanted to ask you – do you need someone to look over your marketing – online and offline – and help you see where you are doing well and where you need to be more strategic?

Perhaps you’ve been on Facebook or Instagram for years, but not sure if you are doing it “right” or if you could do it better with just some tweaks or save time by being more strategic OR perhaps you’ve been emailing your list for years and really not sure if you are on track with it.

Or maybe your website is something you have, BUT …… is it doing you and your brand justice?

Well, FABULOUS news – I have opened up my audits again for 2022.

Basically, we have a chat about goals and platforms and marketing via zoom, then I take those goals and audit your social media platforms, email strategy and website and give you a report on how you are tracking – but not in relation to what I think – but what you are strategically trying to do and build your business.

I spent a few hours writing a report to you – giving you points, tips and tricks and then you can implement and ensure your 2022 is fabulous – because your marketing is on track to achieve!

Book your audit here: https://bit.ly/auditwithjenn (link in the show notes!).

After a few conversations in the past few weeks, ok, honestly, perhaps some frustrating conversations I’ve had in the past few weeks, I wanted to chat to you about Omni Channel Marketing. 

What Omni-channel is, why you need to be thinking about it in your business plans and marketing strategy and how not thinking about it – hence the frustrating conversations is impacting your business today.

So firstly what the high flying kite am I am talking about!  So having an omnichannel approach to your business is seeking to provide customers with a seamless shopping experience, whether they are shopping online, from a desktop computer to a phone to a bricks and mortar store.

To me, it’s the approach of having your branding synced over all your platforms online and offline but also having, from a marketing point of view, multiple touchpoints.

When I was in retail my mentor always talked about the rule of 6.  You needed 6 touchpoints to take a lead from list to sale – or from a liker to a buyer, so to speak.

Clearly, that’s way outdated now and more like 12 if we are honest, but it’s even more than that.

The rule is 11, 7, 4.

Remember those numbers 11, 7, 4

Google’s research tells us:

11 touches with a prospect

7 hours of content consumption or interaction with your business

4 different platforms or outlets

So, ask yourself, how long would it take your prospect to have 11 touch points with you, consume 7 hours of your content and see you on 4 different platforms or outlets?

Given, if the process is probably sped up for product-based businesses, but it’s a good general rule of thumb to think about when it comes to looking at your marketing strategy and the multi-channel or omnichannel approach you are embracing in business.

Those numbers are pretty powerful aren’t they?

11, 7, 4

If building trust is the way to build a business.

If building a community is the way to build a profitable business, then these numbers need to become something you study and look at in your business.

The audit I talked about earlier, these are some of the things I look at strategically for you, and make recommendations on.

So, you might be asking, what’s the source of frustration in the conversations I have been having a little lately?

Well, it’s a little about mindset, it’s a little about not making marketing a priority and it’s a little about the overwhelm people are feeling.

Build it and they will come is the attitude of some small business owners.  I have social media, I have a website, I have this, I have that …. Why aren’t I selling anything?  Why can’t I build a community?

Answer, 11, 7, 4

Not making marketing a priority is a downfall of many and I get it – totally – life is busy, but doing your money-making activities, such as marketing first, needs to be your priority in business in order to grow, and be profitable – or just be more profitable if you don’t want to grow (which I get some people don’t want to do).

Marketing is everything and will get you 11, 7 and 4

Spreading your touchpoints – being multi-channelled is so important in 2022.

You should only ever be where your ideal client is (for business anyway) but only have Facebook or only concentrating on Instagram isn’t going to work – 11, 7, 4!

11 touches, 7 hours and 4 platforms.

Being in business is a business.

I guess my frustration comes when business owners want to make money but don’t want to spend any money to make it!

Having an omnichannel approach challenges us to not only have our own website and our own social media platforms and our own email list or bricks and mortar store but to put our products and services on a marketplace – such as www.spendwithus.com.au that has its own traffic – or esty or eBay or to do collaborations with other small business owners and cross-promote on their socials and share email lists for a project or use Facebook groups or write blogs and articles for PR opportunities, go on podcasts for interviews or start our own.

Some see if as spreading themselves thin, but that’s a mindset thing – I see it as ensuring you are reaching your ideal client where they hang out and giving them 11 touches to build trust, loads of content to consume for them to get to know us and like us, and it goes without saying therefore, that’s across more than 4 different channels or platforms.

So, if I applied the 11, 7, 4 rule to your business, how would it stack up?

How Omni channelled are you?

Do an audit?  Be honest, take a look at your business and look at where you can improve your strategy to ensure your prospects are (a) finding you (b) finding out what they need to know about you and (c) buying from you because they know, like and trust you so much from all the interactions they’ve had with you!

You don’t need to be everywhere but you did need to be more places than just your own and perhaps even more places than you are currently – not everyone, but most of us!

There’s a reason why I have a weekly podcast, a weekly blog, social media, email list and so on – for this reason!

Reach out if you want to chat about your channel or Omni-ness (not sure that’s even a word!) and we can chat.  Book a discovery call on my website – www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au

Ok, that’s it for another episode of the Small Business Made Simple Podcast.

Remember you can find the links in the show notes at www.socialmediaandmarketing.com.au/179

See you next week on the podcast for episode 180 – far out how cool is that – edging towards 200 – mind is blown!  But in the meantime, let’s hang out on social and get social on social – you’ll find me on Instagram, Facebook and my fav LinkedIn.

But whatever you do,

……..remember small business peeps, as my opening song says, there’s no point in dreaming small!