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Stevie Dillon

Instagram Is Not Your Marketing Plan [PLEASE Do This Instead]

February 13, 2024

“My launch failed”, she wrote to me one Sunday evening. 

Weird, I thought. 

I’d seen the funnel — it was good. So, I asked to dig into the stats. 

“What was your conversion rate?”, I asked. 

She stared at me blankly.

“You know.. the percentage of people in the launch that bought?”

Oh. There was six days of silence, and she emailed me back.

“5.4%”. 

Well, I thought.. the launch didn’t fail. Actually, it converted GREAT. There just wasn’t enough traffic. 

It was EASY for me to see the issue. And, to objectively see where the opportunity was to improve.

But, she couldn’t see it, and subjectively, in her mind it was a big fat flop. 

It’s kind of the industry’s fault that this sort of thing is a HUGE issue. 

We EXPECT fast success. Knock it out of the park wins in two seconds. And when it doesn’t work out like that? We scrap the WHOLE thing, and go and build something else from scratch. 

But, that is a story for a different day. 

For today? Let’s talk about HER, and how this scenario can be avoided with ONE thing.

This scenario is COMMON:

GREAT launch.
HIGH conversion rate.
But, low traffic, so it’s perceived as a flop.

It is a very common and vicious cycle that occurs when someone decides to start trying to build a more leveraged business model, and it looks like this: 

  1. Person builds offer; 
  2. They promote it on social media to a small audience; 
  3. They launch it and due to very small registrations, perceive the WHOLE thing as a flop (it’s not, the LAUNCH worked great) despite a high buy rate; 
  4. Even if they DO realise that it was just more traffic that was needed, they have NO idea how to get it;
  5. So, they try to haphazardly invest in Meta ads, or pitch podcasts with crappy angle and poor pitch game so nothing works; 
  6. They launch again with the SAME amount of traffic as the first launch; 
  7. They get even smaller results because everyone bought the first time, and eventually they give up altogether.

I’ve seen the cycle too many times, and here’s what I’ve realised.

There is ONE thing missing, and it’s letting down their WHOLE game.

That one thing?

A simple, effective marketing plan in place to drive the amount of traffic they need to sell their scalable offers with (relative) EASE.

The very JOB of marketing is to generate the VOLUME and QUALITY of traffic required to meet a specific revenue goal.

But for many, it’s a dark art, and very few if any business owners actually have a SIMPLE, CLEAR marketing plan in place to it (let alone implement it).

They are starting with the tactics FIRST.. posting on Instagram, random last minute Meta ads.. and there’s no wonder their launches and promotions aren’t performing.

Listen On: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

So, let’s break down the basics of an effective marketing plan:

1) You need a campaign mindset:

A marketing plan is NOT a “let me post on Instagram two weeks out from my launch and see what happens” strategy.

Instead, it is a series of sales campaigns with specific sales offers that are strung together throughout the year to achieve your goals.

Specifically, they include a sales promotion, phases of priming and an offer with scarcity or urgency.

Your campaigns could be an automated funnel, a live launch or even monthly promotions — and usually, you will have a sales model that specific your unique mix.

2) You need a SPECIFIC traffic goal:

You can’t just “hope” people will see your offer.

You need to know the EXACT volume of traffic (ie clicks) you need to your campaign invitation page in order to reach your revenue goal.

3) You need a strategic content plan:

In the lead up to your campaign, you need a strategic way of creating content that is moving people along the customer journey to be READY to buy from you.

You’re taking people from problem aware – they know they have a problem, but they don’t know the way you solve it is the answer – to understanding that YOUR solution is the best.

4) You need an “always on” lead acquisition channel (and a way to know if its successful):

Most of the time, your campaigns are a small window of time, and achieving your traffic goals in that window will be difficult without a contact list to promote to.

Sure, you hear of established founders running a huge volume of ads in the two weeks before a promotion, but that is an advanced strategy that requires a SUPER dialled in funnel and;

5) You need to know your click power (and how to improve it):

You need to know how many clicks you deployed to your last sales campaign. That’s your click power.

If it’s not the same as your traffic goal, you need to know how to improve it WELL before you need it.

So there you have it. FIVE basics of an effective marketing plan.

And for many, the missing link between posting on Instagram and actually making REAL sales.

Sound like something you need?

There is something very special coming in the coming weeks, and although this isn’t the plan forever, we intend to give access to everyone that is currently a member of Lifestyle Business School (so if you have been on the fence, now would be the time to join us!)

It’s called Traffic Playbook, and it helps expertise-based businesses generate the volume and quality of traffic required to sell their scalable offers with a simple but sophisticated marketing plan that doesn’t rely on inconsistent algorithms, slow social growth or tactic-heavy “hope-ium” for sales.

Join Lifestyle Business School here, and get instant access the moment it drops.

Keep Listening!

Listen On: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

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