Is Your Marketing More Interesting Than … ? Jay Baer

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Convince and Convert

That’s what the sign says. Right in front of the sign is Jay Baer, pronouncing that your marketing HAS TO BE more interesting than your customer’s wife …

Marketing today is hyper-competitive. On every social media feed, you will see a combination of professional and personal posts. That means messages from your family and friends show up in the stream alongside business-oriented content – both are clamoring for your attention. Consequently, it’s not necessarily about whether you can beat other businesses for customer attention – rather it’s a matter of being more interesting than the people they love. That is NOT an easy marketing challenge!

On Track Tips: We hear people saying this all the time: “I’m a small business owner and I’m doing everything I can to manage my business. How do I find time for social media? I am following people like Jay Baer, Chris Brogan, and Pam Moore … but I’m still not seeing results from my efforts.”

The On Track Tips answer to this is, “Stop trying to be Jay Baer and Chris Brogan and start being a resource to your customers.”

Does every business need a social presence?

Jay, how should a small business go about creating a content and social media strategy?

Jay Baer: The big problem is that people worry about how to do social media. Don’t worry about how to do social media – just worry about being social. Determine what you bring to the table that makes people want to give you money. Why do they do that? Is it price, service, superior products, availability, expertise … what is the reason? Whatever that is, find a way to double-down on that differentiator in social media. Social media is simply an amplification of what already makes you successful. Case studies show that all social media does for business is ensure the rich get richer. Good companies can do better – because of social media. And companies that don’t do good can fail faster – because of social media. Social media isn’t a unicorn – it’s just a horse. Don’t complicate it and overthink it. Ask yourself this: What one thing can you do every day that people will care about? Then … do that.

On Track Tips: We hear this a lot: “Be social, be authentic, be genuine … “, there’s real pushback against simply sharing links in posts, you are expected to interact and engage. Many times, small businesses don’t feel they have time for all of that. There’s more ROI to be found in paid ads.

Jay Baer: It is wise to pick your spots. People think I am everywhere, but we have a whole team at Convince and Convert working to put together the broad impact we now have. When it was just me, it wasn’t that way at all. I had a business to run. When a business owner says there is no time for social media, I definitely understand.

On Track Tips: If you don’t have time for social – it’s not your forte anyway – and you can’t afford to hire a social media manager … should you just not do social?

Jay Baer: If you are truly bad at it, you shouldn’t do it. Poorly done, social media simply leeches away your brand value. There is no law saying you HAVE to do social. Plenty of successful businesses have no social media presence. Is that a GOOD strategy? No. Eventually, your customer will want to interact with you on social. 62% of America is on Facebook. That’s where cable TV once was, and nobody said it was “going nowhere.” It is simple to get started:

1. Choose your social media platform(s) according to where your customer are. Go where they go.
2. Do the social media you like. If you don’t care for writing, but you love taking photographs … go build a following on Instagram. If you do it right, it will eventually work for business.

If you like to write longer posts, engage, and merge blog-style writing with social, you should be on Google+. If you like short-form mobile immediacy, you should be on Twitter.

Do what you love to do. Then, you will be good at it, and people will pay attention.

What’s the point of social media, anyway?

On Track Tips: We hear people say this all the time, “Avoid shiny objects.” What IS a “shiny object,” and how can I avoid it?

Jay Baer: In a social media context, shiny objects can be new opportunities and new venues. It can be easy to want to jump on board with every new platform that comes out. I can make a case for creating content in ANY social media avenue, IF you are THAT kind of business. Shiny objects usually get adopted first by the young and the technologically savvy. If your business is focused on those demographics, then you probably SHOULD go after the shiny objects. If your target audience is different, you should probably wait for the platform to go mainstream – to be embraced by your customers – before you get involved.

On Track Tips: You have said, “Content is fire and social media is gasoline.” You take that even further, saying, “If you are looking at website traffic as a major success metric, then you do not fundamentally understand the purpose of your website. You have to focus on behavior not eyeballs.” OK, so what does this mean and how do we make this shift?

Jay Baer: Unless you are selling ads, then traffic to your site has zero net present value. One could argue that visitors are an expense. It is only when visitors do something of value that the traffic benefits you. A large percentage of your traffic is on your website for 10 or fewer seconds. It has NO value for your business. You need to know how many stay awhile, subscribe to your mailing list, download an ebook – how may do ANYTHING that indicates an interest in a business transaction. You then look backwards to see where those people come from … and WHY do they come? What is getting THOSE PEOPLE to your website? You should be concerned with those who engage in behavior that matters.

Your total number of visitors is irrelevant. Those who engage in behavior that leads to revenue – that’s the subset of your traffic you should be concerned with. Spend 95% of your analytics time looking at THEM.

On Track Tips: Take a mom blogger who has hit a chord with readers and is getting thousands of visitors each day: How can she monetize that traffic?

Jay Baer: In that situation, a three-pronged strategy would probably work best:

1. Get sponsors who will pay for those eyeballs – maybe a title sponsor and a couple of secondary sponsors. Charge them monthly to be on every page of the site.
2. Set up a direct monetization offer – maybe a $3.99 eBook that takes the core principles of what’s made the site successful and goes deeper into it.
3. An indirect monetization method, maybe a gourmet email product that provides value and builds the mailing list. That can be used to drive sales of other products OR it can be sponsored as well.

Jay Baer’s next book (foreword by Jason Wiser)

On Track Tips: Do you have a resource that teaches people how to approach and obtain sponsors?

Jay Baer: No, but that’s a great idea, and I should write the eBook. Thank you for that.

Audience question: Have you seen any ROI from the Jay Today show?

Jay Baer: I started the show in order to give myself more opportunities to create content – video is trending now, for instance. I do have sponsors for the show, so from that perspective, ROI is pretty great. The post-show effect is difficult to assess, but the Jay Today shows elicit a whole lot more conversation than anything else I do … much more. I always play the long game. I build platform assets and they always end up generating ROI.

I don’t get too freaked out about whether the blog or the podcast are generating more clicks; it all works together. I try to think about things more holistically. Think about your business as a circle, not as a line.

On Track Tips: I’ve heard you say you sometimes worry about putting too much content out there.

Jay Baer: There are plenty of ways to consume the content I create. Right now, I feel like all those pools are getting full. There is a risk of overexposure. I don’t want people to get sick of seeing and hearing me.

What’s cooking and how do you get people to consume it?

On Track Tips: You wrote this: “People want certainty and people want a recipe. The problem is that if you think you need a recipe, no recipe can help you.” I love that. The 80/20 rule for curation versus creation is a recipe.

Should I be mindful of recipes?

Jay Baer: Recipes can be useful. They can give you a starting point. What you then need to do is TEST that for your own audience.

More Jay Baer: How do I get people to stop and read my content?

• Relevancy creates time. When your content is relevant to audience needs, time magically appears.
• You can’t outsource your voice.
• If someone has to call you in order to buy from you, you’re probably doing it wrong. Every time someone has to call you, it becomes less worth it. If you don’t have your pricing on your website, for example, you are passing up tons of opportunity.

Remember: Convince and Convert.

About Jay Baer: He’s a New York Times bestselling author of the wildly popular book Youtility, and he is a hype-free marketing consultant. Jay just may be the hottest name on the keynote circuit. He packages entire concepts into these wonderful and useful soundbytes. You can hear some of these great nuggets every day when you tune into his Jay Today videos or podcasts. He has advised more than 700 companies, since 1994, including 30 of the Fortune 500.

About wisersites

Host of "Get on Track, Stay on Track" weekly interview series, helping your small business one expert at a time.And CEO of Wiser Sites, a general contractor and marketing agency - connecting your customers with your products.