Episode 37: How to sell anything online

Full Transcript

Chris Edwards

Hi, I’m Chris Edwards and you’re listening to Good Business. Welcome to this week’s how-to episode.

So this week’s episode’s a little bit different because I’m actually just gonna share nine amazing things that I learned from a master class we did on Launchpad around how to sell anything online.

So this was a master class run by the phenomenal Anaita Sakar who has, I think like three businesses and she… has written a book about how to sell anything online and she’s wonderful at sharing everything she’s learned. And I just loved this master class so much that I thought if you were there at this master class, you’d love a refresh to listen to what kind of came out of it. And if you weren’t there, this is like a little tiny snapshot of the amazingness that was shared for the hour. And maybe you should join Launchpad so you’d get full access to this. But anyway, let’s jump into it.

The starting point I think I want to share is Anaita has a formula for digital marketing and that is brand awareness plus website traffic plus website optimization plus brand sentiment equals sales. So brand awareness is just how well people know who you are. Website traffic you understand it’s how many people are hitting your website. Website optimization is all about the user experience. Is it simple and effective for people to be able to buy easily from you? And brand sentiment is how your brand makes people feel. So she shares nine strategies to drive this formula. So let’s get into it.

First up, Facebook ads.

Everyone knows they’re really powerful. And even though they’re not as powerful as they used to be, they’re still powerful. Her big tip is always select conversion. Even if your ads are designed to drive awareness, as opposed to conversion, conversion is gonna make sure that your ads are being shown to people most likely to buy. And she also another big tip is to use behind the scenes content or user generated content. A customer talking about your business is really powerful.

Next up is influencer marketing and collaboration.

So we have a whole episode on collaboration. So jump into episode 28 on that. But I do think influencers and collaborators are a really powerful tool for marketers with small budgets. You can do anything really, as long as you’re willing to barter or provide some product. People are actually really willing to try your product and speak about it.

The next one is Google Ads.

So her hot tip around Google Ads was actually using your competitors names and targeting them because the big players already have an audience. So that’s a really nice little shortcut there. She also recommends long tail keywords. So for example, best social media coach in Singapore, as opposed to just social media Singapore. It’s… a really good way to get your specific buyer getting, finding you. And, um, Google keyword planner is a great tool for this. And as is SEMrush, it’s another tool. It’s a paid tool, but it is really very valuable.

Um, strategy number four is PR.

So to be honest, if you want to engage a publicist or a PR agency, you’re looking at 5k. It’s a pretty standard monthly basic retainer. So if you don’t have this budget, you can hack your own PR and there’s great people in our community that can teach you how to do that. And another option is also the Launchpad Media Membership, which gets you in front of the media and also gives you one-on-one coaching in PR. anaita talks about how her business exploded from 2.5 million to 5 million. in one year and she puts that down to PR. So that’s pretty inspiring.

Strategy number five is TikTok.

Anaita has had a lot of success on TikTok. It’s, I suppose at that stage right now where TikTok is great for discoverability and there’s a lot of organic reach on TikTok which you’re not finding on Facebook or Instagram right now.
The key with TikTok is quantity over quality and be okay with the cringe. You know, you’re never gonna like what you look like on camera. Everyone hates video, everyone hates the sound of their voice. Just kind of get over the cringe, push it aside because it’s powerful.

Strategy number six is email marketing.

I’m a big advocate for email marketing. Some guidelines she gave is you should be trying to grow your email subscriber list by 3x in 12 months. And how you do that is you offer people something of value for them to give up your email address. No one wants to sign up to a News That Up, but they will give you their email address if you give them some value in exchange. And what’s really working, I’m finding in the email land is plain text emails that are genuine. I suppose, you know, down to earth emails from the founder. So, you know, keep it short and keep it really accessible and don’t sell all the time. It’s very refreshing if you’re not selling all the time. If you wanna check out how I’m doing this, you can subscribe to my newsletter. I send a newsletter once a week, usually on a Sunday. And it’s actually, oh gosh, it’s almost like a personal note about the behind the scenes of my life running Honeycomers and Launchpad. And yeah, I suppose, um, it’s, I would say three out of four weeks of the month, it’s really about creating connection and, um, building intimacy without being intimate, but really get letting people get to know you. And then maybe every fourth or fifth email, I’ll put an offer in there or something in there to spark people’s interest to come and join Launchpad. So if you’re in a retail business and you’re selling online, some email sequences are very handy. So like a post purchase thank you message, a second post, if they purchase a second time, a really nice message saying, thank you so much for buying another product from us. It means so much. And if they buy a third time, you know, you might want to send them a loyalty badge and a really special note. You are trying to surprise and delight them in there in their inbox. So the other thing that she talked about, which I really resonate with is don’t worry if people unsubscribe. You only really want your engaged audience on your email list.

Okay. The next big strategy she thinks you need to focus on is SEO.

I’m a big SEO advocate that stands for search engine optimization. So this is a big piece of the puzzle. We have a great masterclass from Kate Toon, You know, I think Australia’s best SEO coach, but some tips she gives is looking at your page speed, looking at backlinks, making sure it’s mobile friendly. And again, you know, at Launchpad, one thing we offer our media members is actually backlinks from Honeycomers every month. So that’s a really, and PR is actually great for backlinks as well, because media sites actually have a lot of SEO juice. and they help lift you up the rankings if they link out to you.

So number eight is website optimization.

So this is how easy it is for your customers to purchase from you once they get to your website. So do you have great product pages? Do you have lots of images? Do you have reviews, FAQs? Do you have a really clear call to action to buy? Have you got really great professional images? This is getting harder and harder. but you need to create trust and website optimization. It’s your shopfront and people need to be able to navigate and feel like they want what you’re selling. So you need to create this trust experience.

And then finally, number nine is brand sentiment.

So this is all around making sure that you don’t just have customers, but that you have raving fans that absolutely adore your business. You really wanna become a cult brand. And Anaita lays out four ease of marketing to kind of think about this. And that is experience. So what is every touch point that people have right down to the shipping experience with your business. The next one is exchange. Think about they’re not just giving you money. They’re giving you their time and their research time and all of that. Thinking time before they’ve purchased. So there is an exchange of time and research, not just an exchange of money. And the next is every place. So I loved this. Anaita talks about this a lot. She says you need to be everywhere all at once. And I think that’s so true. Like I think you need to be thinking about how you can be seen and found on as many platforms as possible. So people continually are reminded of who you are and how awesome you are. And that’s where Facebook ads are really good for this because you can do retargeting.And then finally, evangelism. So you don’t just want customers, you want ambassadors, people that rave about your products. This is the cheapest form of marketing.

So just to recap, that’s Facebook ads, influencer marketing and collaborations, number two. Google ads, number three. Number four, being PR. Number five, TikTok. Number six is email marketing. Number seven being SEO. Number eight, website optimization. So that’s how people can use your site really easily. And then number nine, which is probably the most important, brand sentiment. So making sure that you’ve got raving fans that adore your business.

Okay, that’s it for this how-to episode. I know it’s a lot but I hope it sparks some ideas on what you want to be focusing on and what you think is going to move the needle in your sales, in your digital sales.

Thanks so much for listening. You can drop me an email at chris at the launchpad.group. If you have any feedback, we absolutely love hearing from you. I’d like to know if you found this episode helpful and please be sure to leave us a review or give us a rating. Would really love that. It helps us. be discovered this podcast to be discovered. And then finally, if you want to join our community of conscious entrepreneurs that are really purpose-led and supportive, come and check us out at www.thelaunchpad.group. Finally, before I close out, I just want to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land of which I’m recording this podcast, the Arakwal people of the Bundjalung Nation. I pay my respects to elders past, present and future and I extend my respects to all traditional cultures. Thanks again for tuning in to Good Business. My name’s Chris Edwards and I’ll catch you next time.