How to Set Up a Simple Marketing System

A simple system for driving growth

Your goal is to build a steady pipeline of traffic and leads to your business and eliminate the stress caused by an inconsistent sales funnel. But how does a business leader do this?

Modern marketing is complex. I talk to many small and mid-size company founders and CEOs who are struggling to grow their businesses. Often, the barrier is their lack of understanding of how to set up a simple, affordable, and repeatable marketing system that helps their business grow and scale.

This article aims to outline some basic steps and tools so that any company can implement a successful marketing system.

Pro Tip: Because you’re a busy CEO – you may want to contract or hire a Marketing Manager (who reports to you) to oversee the tasks required to do this right.

Let’s dive in and help you get started!

For Basic Users:

1) Tools: Equipping Yourself for Success

• A robust marketing system starts with a user-friendly and visually appealing website.
  • Ensure it showcases your products or services in the best light to a narrow, clearly defined target audience.
• Integrate a marketing and sales CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platform such as Zoho, Active Campaign, Marketo, or my favourite – HubSpot.
  • Your CRM captures and manages customer data and interactions – enabling you to nurture relationships efficiently.

2) SEO: Climbing the Search Engine Ranks

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vital to any successful marketing system. Your prospects have a problem, and you have the ideal solution for it. Make sure they can find you!
• Conduct keyword research to identify the terms and phrases your target audience is using.
  • Integrate these keywords into your website’s content, meta tags, headers, and URLs, helping search engines understand the relevance of your web pages.
• Long-term: Build quality backlinks from reputable sites to enhance your website’s authority and visibility.
  • Getting backlinks requires that your site content is truly helpful, trusted, and worth sharing.

3) SEM: Expanding Your Reach

• While SEO focuses on organic search results, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) helps you accelerate your reach through paid advertising.
  • Use Google Ads to set up targeted pay-per-click campaigns aligned with your business goals.
  • Later, experiment with ads on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc., depending on your audience.
• Do keyword research to identify high-impact keywords for your ads.
  • Monitor and optimize your campaigns to ensure you get the best ROI. Set spend limits and test, measure, and refine.
• By combining SEO and SEM, you’ll maximize your visibility and attract both organic and paid traffic.

Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers.

It’s not just about entertainment – it’s about education.

– Seth Godin

4) Content Marketing: Engage your Audience and Build a Contact List

• Drive awareness and traffic by creating helpful, inspiring and entertaining content such as a newsletter, blog, templates, tools, and eBooks that resonate with your target market.
  • Capture leads by offering free content in exchange for email addresses – thus building a dedicated subscriber base.
  • Subscribers grant you valuable “permission” to share future communications with them.
    • This gives you the time to demonstrate subject matter expertise and build trust.

Email your list regularly and engage with your audience consistently on social media platforms to build awareness, trust and loyalty.

5) Repetition: Consistency Breeds Success

• Consistency is the secret to a successful marketing system. Develop a marketing calendar and stick to a regular publishing schedule for your content.
• Email your list regularly and engage with your audience consistently on social media platforms to build awareness, trust and loyalty.

6) Analysis and Refinement: Unleashing the Power of Data

• Use tools like Google Analytics and your CRM to gather insights into website traffic, conversion rates, customer interactions, and campaign performance. Identify patterns, trends, and areas for improvement.
• Embrace a mindset of continuous improvement: Optimize underperforming campaigns, tweak website elements, and fine-tune prospect targeting to ensure great results.

Systematize:

7) Make it a Real System: Document your Processes

• For your business to scale – turn your repetitive processes into an easy-to-learn system.
• Start by having your marketing team create a detailed list of their repetitive tasks and the results they want to achieve.
• Get the person responsible for each task to provide detailed step-by-step documentation (written, screen recordings, video – whatever works best).
  • Use an accessible permission-based platform to store and share the documentation.
• Test the system by having another team member go through the documented steps and complete a task.
  • Refine the steps for clarity, speed, ease and outcome as required. You’re ready to scale!

Effective marketing will take time, frequency, and repetition.
Budget both money and patience for this.

Conclusion:

Congratulations on starting the journey of setting up a simple content marketing system for your small or mid-sized business.

By implementing the tips from this article, you can establish a repeatable marketing machine that consistently delivers leads and conversions and propels your business to new heights.

As you get more comfortable, you can begin to add more advanced techniques to your marketing mix.

Remember to always put the needs and preferences of your audience at the forefront.

And don’t abandon your marketing efforts too soon. Effective marketing will take time, frequency, and repetition. Budget enough money and patience for this.

With dedication, adaptability, and a systematic approach, you can achieve your business goals.

If you want to chat about this or any other topic shared at Afdonex, contact me at don@afdonex.com.