Traffic & Conversion Summit is one of the largest digital marketing conferences in the world held by Digital Marketer in San Diego, United States.
In February 2020, I had the pleasure of attending for the first time along with 6,000 other attendees! In case you couldn’t make it or attend the 119 sessions on offer (yep, there were that many!), here are my top 5 lessons from the summit plus action steps:
#1 Times Are Changing – Digital Advertising Just Got More Expensive…
Ryan Deiss, CEO and Founder of Digital Marketer opened the event and discussed some industry trends. For the first time in history, more money is being spent on online advertising compared to traditional advertising. Big businesses have tapped into what we have known for a long time, online WORKS!! It can be tracked, plus be quickly and easily optimized as opposed to running an ad in a newspaper where it can be hit or miss…
So, what does that mean for you?
Because the online advertising market is now more crowded, it’s become more expensive to advertise online than ever before with an increase in competition. Large corporations have bigger budgets and can afford and absorb the higher cost in acquiring new leads.
So, what can you do about it?
More than ever, the need to create organic relevant content to your audience is CRITICAL.
ACTION – What’s the current cost to acquire a lead? What can you do to reduce the cost to acquire a lead? Where is your target market hanging out and how you can use free or low-cost strategies to reach them?
#2 Talk in Absolutes
Ryan also shared about the need to create movements and to present yourself as an authority. One of the ways in which you do that is to talk in Absolutes.
Absolutes are definite statements that are certain and does not leave any grey area as to where you stand.
Self confession… I’ve been terrible at this!
If someone were to ask me, what is the best CRM for my business? I would always say…. It would depend…. I’d ask a few questions, find out more about the specific business and what they wanted to achieve before recommending a solution.
But what that does for the prospect is leaves them confused and potentially makes me look like I may not know what I’m talking about.
(Well after 5 years I hope that I don’t come across like that)!
So, here’s a new one for me…
Keap offers the best CRM for any small business.
I can now say that for the two platforms that come under this brand (whereas before I couldn’t when Infusionsoft was the only offering!)
Now of course this could be controversial me saying this and you may or may not agree with it, but you know where I stand, and that was the point that Ryan was making.
Another two absolute statements that I’m 100% behind are …
Every small business needs a CRM.
Automation is powerful, only if you use it.
Consider your audience.
Do you speak in absolutes to them?
What are your absolute statements that you preach?
Ryan gave a couple of examples:
“All debt is bad.” Dave Ramsey
“There has never been a better time, in the history of time, than right now to start a business.” Gary Vaynerchuk
Think about what you and your brand stands for and start communicating that to your audience.
(We certainly have some action to take on this one!)
ACTION – List out all the possible absolute statements that your brand can stand behind. What are the top 3 that you can be consistently driving to the marketplace? How will you share this message with your audience?
#3 Answer the Simple Questions Of Your Customer
After many years in business we have been guilty of forgetting about this important lesson of answering the simple questions of your prospects and customers. For example, I was just asked the other day, how do I send out a broadcast in Infusionsoft? I figured everyone knew how to do that! My bad! 🙁
So, that’s one of the next blog posts that we’re working on, plus a few others to answer the most frequent and simple questions that our audience has on using Infusionsoft.
What are the simple questions that your audience asks?
Have you got answers for them?
And if so, where are those answers and how are you addressing them?
A few ways to find out what your market wants to know:
- Review – what are you prospects/customers already asking?
- Ask them! Yep it’s as simple as that 🙂
- Research on www.answerthepublic.com
- Check out Facebook groups or other online communities to find out what common questions get asked there
ACTION – Go through the options above and list your top 10 simple questions. Have you got content created for this yet? If not, then make a plan to not only CREATE but DISTRIBUTE as well. Get these questions answered for your peeps!
#4 What Are You Buyers Searching Online?
Most of us use Google to assist with our purchasing decisions, but have you ever really thought about what phrases your prospects/buyers are searching at different times in making a buying decision for your product/service?
Roland Frasier presented a very fast paced session on this very topic, he broke this up into 5 different micro-moments from general research to getting a deal.
Here are the 5 Micro-Moments below:
- Which / what is best?
- Is it right for me?
- Can I afford it?
- Where should I buy it from?
- Am I getting a deal?
Some of the languages used to using the example of someone purchasing a car:
Here is where you can find Roland’s slide deck with more examples:
Consider how powerful this is, when you’re in the mind of your prospects throughout those key moments when they are making a buying decision, and even better, you can be there when they search online :).
ACTION – Create a table like the one above and do some research online to see what common phrases your target market will be searching at each of those Micro-Moments. Consider what you can do to target content/ads at those particular points.
#5 Your Videos Need To Be Better Than Buttcheeks!
One of the sessions I attended was with Billy Gene. He presented a session on video marketing, the importance of video and one really important fact that hit home to me.
Your videos need to be better than buttcheeks!
Yes, that’s right. And it makes sense when you think about it. We are all competing for attention on social media and buttcheeks get a lot of attention.
As they say, s*x sells!
Always remember to make your videos GET ATTENTION, ENTERTAIN & ENGAGE your audience. Otherwise you just won’t get the reach if you’re competing with more appealing content.
ACTION – Firstly, if you’re NOT doing video. When are you going to record your first video?!? Video is a MUST to remain competitive (particularly when you look at the big businesses coming to town – this will allow you to reach more people for free and/or a fraction of the cost compared to paying for traditional online ads). Ok, for those of you who do video already, what can you do make your next video more entertaining and engaging? Is it adding captions, being more energetic, using music, using props and the list goes on (see image for other ideas). What specific action will you take to improve your next video? (FYI – We are going to focus on adding captions!).
Wrap Up
Ok, so that’s the official wrap for Traffic & Conversion Summit 2020! Yes, there were other lessons/actions, but wanted to keep the list concise so you can focus on perhaps one/two of the above to get some quick wins on.
Would I attend T&C again?
Hell yes!
Of course, it was a hike to get there from Australia, but well worth the trip to learn from some of the best digital marketing minds in the world and network with peers and other small business owners.
I’m a big believer you get as much out of something as you put in, and that particularly goes with attending any training/event.
Next time, I’ll make sure I get enough sleep as I felt like a walking zombie for the event, despite arriving a few days earlier to deal with jetlag, but next time I’ll nail it! 🙂
(NOTE: Ready to use more automation in your business to make more sales with less effort – even if you don’t have a fancy system? Check out the Marketing Automation Game Plan and discover in this free 3-part video series the proven steps you must follow to successfully transform your business with automation. Learn more now.)
