My deep dive into the world of Social Media & Digital Marketing. Why 99% of Marketing Fails & How to be in the 1%

Digital Transformation; The big picture

As we all are acutely aware; in today's rapidly evolving & technology-driven world; change is the only constant. Embracing & accelerating digital transformation is now an essential strategy for all businesses to reframe how we succeed into the future. Add to this, developing proficiency in high level digital skills is now non-negotiable and is a crucial & powerful tool to build brand, increase visibility & engagement and fuel business growth.

The truth is; everyone that's winning at the top level has developed a repeatable system & set of digital skills and if you don't; you're behind the curve like a quarterback with no playbook. It doesn’t matter whether you’re C-suite, an employee or an entrepreneur; this truth applies to you.

So, since 99% of Marketing fails; I wanna learn how to be in the 1%

To paraphrase the 7 Time Super Bowl Champ, Tom Brady ; I’ve learned the hard way that to be successful; you don’t need to be special , you need to be what most people aren’t. That is, to be consistent, determined & resilient, to add value, to solve a problem & to be able to create moments of success off the back of hard work. This winning mindset can be applied to all areas of life & business and even the Goat himself cites this as the secret sauce to becoming a champ in life!

However, just like the 99%, I've had successes & failures (probably more than most) while navigating the uncertainties of early-stage startup’s to mastering the strategic timing of an exit to missing the boat entirely. But this story isn't just about celebrating milestones or recognising my successes & failures; it's simply about a sharing what I’ve discovered in my deep-dive into learning the digital skills & systems to future proof myself and my mission to hit that illusive 1% strike rate consistently. My take is that an authentic entrepreneur’s voice is always more resonant than a polished pitch; so with a picturesque village in rural Ireland serving as a backdrop over the past 5/6 weeks for my deep dive into the world of social media & digital marketing; here’s my story so far.

My favourite kinda win/win

I absolutely love that 20 year old’s all over the world are fearlessly jumping into social media to build an engaged audience, which they monetize as they command all that they survey. Some of these kids like Jenny Hoyos , who with over 1BN views, are intuitively & ingeniously taking social media by storm and despite their relative inexperience, they’re winning in this space. However, while there is always much to learn from these kids strategies; to paraphrase the social media marketing guru; Gary Vaynerchuk ; it’s not the Gen Zer’s; but it’s the 47 year olds like me, with the right mindset, skills, hard-earned wisdom, ability to tell a story & deploy lean systems on autopilot, who are gonna win long term - we just need to learn the digital skills & get in the game.

Spark the potential of success & supercharge it

My take; at this stage in our lives/careers we’re are more prepared to win as we’ve been tested in life, so we’ve got our resilience dialled in. We’ve learned how to build high level discipline, how to build relationships, add value & we embrace growth mindset values; plus we have the experience, emotional capacity & context that gives us an invaluable perspective to work with purpose & execute on our audience needs in our respective markets.

Add to that; we know that systemizing everything ensures repeatable predictability, builds confidence & zero fear of uncertainty. While our actions are always primary; we’re able to spark the potential of success and we have the skills to supercharge it. Plus we've learned when we fail, we win or learn, we dust ourselves down & move onto the next play, like a champ.

Learning what systems to use is where the real magic happens

Being self-critical; mastering the art of social media success has not only always been illusive, but a mystery to me, despite systematically road-testing every available platform (from ClickFunnels & Kajabi, to Go High Level & Kartra, to name just a few) across our various edtech startups, to build & launch sales funnels & apply automation and leverage our rapidly growing e-mail lists. I've definitely fallen into the 99% Marketing failure bucket and as a result, this was a skill I routinely outsourced & we always left money on the table – which I hate.

So, having researched various digital marketing courses; I chose The Roadmap 3.0 digital marketing course and this is where the real magic happens. The cliff notes version is that, consisting of 30 in depth Modules & over 347 highly informative & individual videos tutorials; the roadmap is one of the most comprehensive foundational digital marketing courses currently available to educate & empower you to learn real-world, actionable & fundamental digital marketing skills.

With an engaged community of over 50k people worldwide; the course covers systems, automation & e-mail marketing in detail. It goes deep on social media & branding & especially building sales funnels and priced at US$497; it’s a significantly more affordable investment, not to mention infinitely quicker to master than a 3 year degree or an MBA. Like everything in life however; the knowledge is only as good as it’s practical application – so here’s what I’ve learned so far.

Building effective sales funnels & systems on autopilot to power winnable moments & hit that 1%

The beauty about social media is the free organic reach you get & you can also leverage social media based on your time, reach & budget. So, when you know at a high level what you wanna do with your personal brand or business on social media & you put together a set of guiding principles; build the sales funnels & systems, focus on timing & speed and apply a pre-planned & coordinated strategy to execute; there’s so much potential to accelerate your growth.

However, the challenge for me personally, has been getting the no BS inside track on the systems, specifically around automation & sales funnels; what platforms to use & how to really leverage the digital marketing piece, so this is why I’ve gone on a deep dive to upskill myself & my vision.

It’s clear that most users of social media are there predominantly to use it for escapism, entertainment & motivation; but there are also rapidly growing pockets of active consumption, especially on TikTok , which I talk about below. This platform in particular has become a discovery, search & trust engine and is a huge driver of traffic that both authentically & (unfortunately) disingenuously inspires people to make purchases online. With the ability to monetize your following, it’s truly changing the game; add to that; with all the data, analytics & metrics; it’s getting much easier to track social media as a conversion tool, so it really is a vital top-of-funnel channel.

If you want to be in that 1% success bracket; having an effective sales funnel on autopilot is absolutely crucial, as is having a bulletproof platform to run it from, just like Systeme.io . For anyone in business today, especially those revolving around products like ecommerce, SaaS, digital products, education or coaching; there’s so much to be learned by looking at the likes Grant Cardone when it comes to running successful marketing campaigns on autopilot. He’s got it dialled in & while building a sales funnel now is almost like child’s play – it’s only easy when you know how, so let me know if you need help in this regard.

Content, the fake & filtered experiences & the Creator led approach

It’s clear that the most engaging & effective entertainment driven content is now typically the unpolished, self deprecating messaging. In 5 weeks, I've learned to more accurately identify what the needs, wants, problems & motivations are on social media & also the harsh reality; that there are so many creators & big brands selling fake & filtered experiences in a sea of sameness. So, to resonate & really connect; you need to be more relatable, less aspirational and be really authentic in the story you tell.

In a short space of time, I’ve learned that; whether you’re a personal brand or a business; what’s winning in the market at present is to take a creator led approach. You need to create a method & build a process around this, which helps to open a short window of opportunity to create awareness for your personal brand or business & enables you to follow up with a window to reengage and build that all important relationship. Just like my go-to "conversations lead to closes"; you need to be consistent with your output & clearly articulate your value proposition.

Deliver creatively & authentically with repetition & systems

While I’m always saying how much sales is less a science & more a skilful art; there is a definite art to being successful on social media & it’s clear this all starts with a combo of pre-planned & reactive content using static captioned images as well as reels & videos. It’s often said that a mention or a repost is worth 3 times the ad value; so your digital marketing needs to be run with precision & daily frequency and you need to deliver creatively with repetition to change a mindset & engage your target audience. ?

You also need to build your own bank with good content & reintroduce the bank into your weekly content planning and put what works & resonates into the mix. Creating content, researching keywords, CTA's (Calls to Action), Hooks & Copy plus targeted Marketing or Sales Lead Magnets, while testing & iterating all takes time, so when you cycle content from the bank all the time, this feeds into your system which you’ve on autopilot & gives you more time to look for other wins.

Painting by numbers & the older generation

Social media as we all know, has become has become the go-to tool for shaping a personal brand or supercharging business growth. TikTok for example is currently at 1.5BN monthly active users & is predicted to hit 1.8BN MAU by end of 2024 & it is competing with the mothership YouTube in a battle for consumer retention - so there's a big opportunity to get a push. Instagram also has 2BN monthly active users with people between the ages of 18 and 24 making up over 31 percent of its total user base.

However, While TikTok is still in its infancy, it’s already fundamentally changing how people search online & how platforms cater to users – So, enter TikTok the browsing engine, which draws people in with entertainment & tracks what people engage with, then it's algorithm serves up accounts, ads & product recommends that fall perfectly in line with each consumer’s personal interests.

Plus with the power of audience research, advanced segmenting & targeting, businesses can really diversify the content they show to specific audiences & the smart & successful brands are doing just that. You’re now seeing an uptick in marketing to older generations, shifting from the influencers & creators they typically partner with to creators over 40 & the creator economy is growing like wildfire.

TikTok the discovery, search & trust engine

Not only is TikTok paving the way for online search, it is going head-to-head with Google search. Why? Because TikTok is a trust engine! Essentially, social platforms are visual & more compelling than written reviews, so TikTok is winning in the search game in niches where visuals are essential to the experience. There’s a new consumer trend that can be summarized in one sentence:?“I don’t Google anymore, I TikTok.” & Google’s SVP, Prabhakar Raghavan, even cited Google’s internal data, confirming that?40% of young people ?will go directly to TikTok or Instagram over Google Search & Maps.

In addition to being a discovery, search & trust engine, I've personally started to use TikTok as a recommendation engine, where the algorithm is so effective that your FYP (for you page) knows exactly what you're doing & when you’re doing it; like redecorating the house, it serves up content from what paint colours to choose to what bed sheets to buy. Plus, without being political; people aren’t only adopting TikTok for search because of discoverability; they’re also turning to TikTok because of trust issues with Google & an increased confidence in authentic content from creators who typically monetize their following with link in BIO on something like Stan Store and/or TikTok Shop . This is the future.

As we know, on Google; the first few search engine results pages (SERPs) don’t go to the best content; it’s purchased real estate, rewarded to the highest bidder (for paid search) & the biggest budgets for SEO & content marketing. For a long time, Google was the only option, but with the growth of TikTok, it’s now possible to skip the over-saturated Google results & find more helpful & compelling content on TikTok and to leverage this to grow your personal brand or business.

My takeaways

Have I created personal brand profiles on TikTok & Instagram ? Yep you bet I have with Think Success with AJ on TikTok & ThinkSuccesswithAJ on Instagram. My philosophy; if I’m gonna learn the real digital marketing secrets & secret sauce to hitting that 1% success rate; I need to go the full cycle; create content in the niche, build effective sales funnels that convert & are congruent with the offering, plus solve people’s problems (it doesn't matter whether I'm selling something for US$1 or US$1M+ this is my flow state, as I’ll always be a salesman at heart), iterate, educate, build relationships, add value & sell in a way that’s relatable to a specific target audience.

On social media, you can now leverage a low cost high return model to great effect & you don't need to run unnecessary & expensive ad's 24/7. If you do things right, just like GymShark ; who've mastered the gym bro culture & humour and became a billion dollar behemoth. The reality is, that while the platforms own the audience and social media is not black & white, there still are millions of ways to use the platforms effectively to suit your goals & objectives.

*Disclaimer - all my social profiles also contain tons of shirtless gym bro videos of me working out & throwing the weights around my garage gym, club or big box as this has always been & will be a keystone of my daily routine to ensure harmony in body & mind - so if you're opposed to seeing a 47 year old doing the work in his happy place, then this isn't for you :-)

As far as upskilling challenges go, investing in my future self & learning how not to fail in marketing 99% of the time; this has actually been quite enjoyable and for a guy like me, in his late 40’s who strategically wasn’t on social media; it’s been a fascinating experience to personally apply the digital skills I’m learning.

I love that I can analyze first-hand what resonates with a specific target audience that buy into my personal brand & also our other edtech brands. I’ve been able to efficiently monetize a user base, win more moments, build an engaged audience with loyal followers, who I've been able to convert into customers & ambassadors for the brand. So if you want to go on a journey of finding peoples WHY & solving that problem, then this is such a worthwhile exercise.

Finally, what does all this mean? Can I use what I’ve learned to optimise C-suite, employee & entrepreneur level thinking into making more informed decisions that have impact & hit that 1% strike rate - YES. Can I fix peoples shit & teach them to be more resilient, more relentless & how to win – Resounding YES. ?

So, Gen Zer’s watch out – us old jocks are on the charge!

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