Are you invisible to your target market? (new research from Google)

Read Time: 5 minutes

Welcome to BE THE EXPERT! In today’s issue:

• Are you invisible to your target market?
• No-cost ​masterclass​ this Thursday
• Instagram Updates: Reels, Ads, Carousels, and More

Are you invisible to your target market?

If your target market is unaware of your business or brand, your odds of generating revenue are nil.

Sounds obvious right? But how do we get visible?

Content.

The right content strategy can dramatically accelerate your expert business and reduce your cost to acquire customers.

Last week I described some of the benefits of ​publishing high-value content for a year​.

Those include:

• Providing consistent value to attract, convert, and ascend your ideal customers
• Repurposing content to amplify your reach and the ROI for your efforts
• Creating content strategically so that the sum is greater than the parts (ex. planning a year of content in such a way that it results in a a book or signature program)

The reason content is so important is how the Internet has changed the buyer’s journey.

Google: Decoding the Messy Middle

In Google’s research report called ​Decoding Decisions – The Messy Middle of Purchase Behavior​ they proved that the buyer’s journey is not linear but starts with interest or a trigger and eventually ends with a purchase but in between:

“there is a winding, scrawled squiggle, which seemed a reasonable way to represent our first significant discovery: there are no typical journeys. Instead there is a confusing web of touchpoints that we likened to spaghetti”

They called this the “messy middle” and discovered that today’s buyers require many more touchpoints than previously when they make a buying decision.

They observed that for even simple purchases like shampoo or supplements or electronics let alone the coaching, courses, and programs like we might sell, people visited multiple:

“search engines, review sites, video sharing sites, portals, social media, comparison sites, forums, interest groups / clubs, retailer sites, aggregators, blogging sites, voucher / coupon sites, branded sites, publishers, noticeboards”

Observing these customer journeys, Google found that:

“Having arrived at these sites, of which there are multiple to choose from, many of the shoppers spent significant amounts of time navigating back and forth, switching between sites across multiple browser tabs and apps. In fact, in some of the sessions we observed, the product under consideration actually changed mid-search, as a new option became preferred.”

As I read that, I certainly recognized my own habits there, how about you?

So how does this all tie back to content?

It comes from the #1 recommendation from Google in this report:

“Being present from the first moment of deliberation is table stakes for any brand hoping to emerge triumphant from the messy middle.”

Exposure

In the model they outlined, Google grouped a business or brand’s marketing activities under the umbrella of “exposure,” which means generating awareness of your business and brand within the realm of the product category someone is considering.

If you are a life coach as an example, is your brand front and center when people are exploring or evaluating life coaches?

How do you get such exposure?

Content…

If you don’t have content (website, blog, YouTube, social, etc.), you have no exposure or chance of these potential buyers finding you.

Exposure, of course, can be amplified by ads, affiliates, joint ventures, email, etc., but all of that requires content.

Google’s model broke down the “messy middle” into two components:

Exploration and Evaluation.

Exploration

During exploration, buyers look for options and expand their knowledge by consuming the content and marketing that brands publish.

What might have started as a search for one brand or product quickly spiders out into numerous options (like when you search for anything on Amazon and get 1,000 similar products)

Or in our expert business realm, if you search for “life coach” or “social media strategy” you also gets hundreds of results (are you even in the result list?)

Evaluation

The options lead to the second component, which is evaluation. Now, these buyers need to evaluate those options and, in the course of doing so, usually find more options and considerations to choose from.

This is why their model diagram shows looping back and forth between exploration and evaluation.

They found that it is not uncommon for decisions to span days, weeks, and even months across ten or more different brands.

Experience

The final component, experience, was the customer’s experience with a business or brand after purchase (which influences their perception of the brand and potential for future purchases).

Key Takeaway:

The winners were the ones with constant exposure in all stages with content and marketing that helped with the exploration and evaluation process.

Being Omnipresent

The Google research shows why it’s so important to be omnipresent in your market (and later, I’ll show how this can be done as a solopreneur and without high cost)

You need to be visible when buyers explore and when they evaluate.

You need to be there when they are drifting toward a competitor or when they have a question.

You need to be there on whatever channel they are using to look for solutions:

• How do you show up on Google? Website/Blog Content and SEO.
• How do you show up on YouTube? Content and SEO.
• How do you show up on Facebook? Content and ads.
• How do you show up on other social channels? Content and ads.

The Google research shows the flaw in focusing on only one channel: people don’t stay on one channel for the entire buyer’s journey.

When they use channels you are not present on, they drift away from your brand.

If they complete their exploration and evaluation and are ready to make a purchase, if you are not there, you won’t be their choice.

Nearly all successful online entrepreneurs know this, and that is why you see them everywhere on every channel.

Omnipresence is how you found them and started following them.

Whether it’s Alex Hormozi, Gary V, Jasmine Starr, Ali Abdaal, Amy Porterfield, etc.

All of them demonstrate the power of content to build brands and businesses.

The real question most of us have is HOW???

From the outside, it seems like they must spend 90% of their time in front of a camera and posting on social media.

In reality, most of them spend less than two days a month on content.

How do they put out so much valuable content with that small of a time investment?

1. They use a repurposing strategy
2. They systemize
3. They use the right tools
4. They delegate (keep reading though, I’ll show how this does NOT have to be expensive)

I call that a “content engine.” It is the strategy, systems, tools, and team (or AI) that enable you to publish revenue-generating content at scale.

No-Cost Content Engine Masterclass

This week I will be hosting a masterclass on how to establish a content engine and AI team in your business enabling you to:

• Publish original, high-value content at scale (without being in front of a camera all the time)
• Assemble your content into major assets like a book, signature system, coaching program, or digital course
• Be omnipresent across all channels and touchpoints in your ideal customer’s buyer journey (without being on social media all day)

​Register here​ and learn how to establish a content engine in your business!

Saturday Spotlight 💡

Content Spotlight:​

How mature is your content strategy?

After you ​register for the masterclass​, this video is a great one to watch first and assess where you are with your content strategy today and where you want to be!

Tool Spotlight:​

​Descript​ – Descript is the AI-powered, fully featured, end-to-end video editor that you already know how to use.

Descript is a key part of our content engine system for quickly editing and repurposing content.

In this week’s masterclass I’ll be showing how we use Descript to accelerate the entire process.

News Spotlight:

​Instagram Updates: Reels, Ads, Carousels, and More​ – Social Media Examiner

Lots of Instagram updates in the last few weeks! In this video they give a good rundown of all of them.