I have been using the same system, over and over again for years. If you want to grow your personal brand, do exactly this.
My philosophy is built on a simple system I developed that I call “integrated marketing.” My hope is that after reading this, you can take this strategy and put it into action to grow your personal brand.
Do you want to know how I became an Internet millionaire in just a few years? CLICK HERE to get instant access to my FREE Digital Pioneer business course!
*Note – This system still requires you to put in real work. I don’t want to get any angry emails from people telling me they tried my system for 3 weeks and they’re not rich.
Step 1 - Build a Website
Yes. Absolutely build a website.
Your business is not your social media presence. Your brand cannot live on Facebook or Instagram or YouTube. You have to have a website on a domain that you own. This gives you control and ownership over your brand.
Plus – without a website, you will have a much harder time being found through organic search.
To grow your personal brand, you want to have ownership of it. You will never own your Facebook page or your Instagram account. Facebook can change the rules any time it wants. If you’re going to bother putting in all this work and effort, than be sure to invest in something that you have ownership of.
Building a website is a crucial first step in growing your personal brand.
Step 2 - Create Content
Dedicate the first 3 months to creating content. It doesn’t have to be daily, but it should be consistent. If you don’t have time to make daily images or videos or articles, that’s okay. But your audience will start to expect you to show up consistently.
You could publish content once every few days or even once a week. But remember, be sure to publish content on your website!
Even if the content you create is on YouTube or a podcast, be sure to re purpose that content on your site.
This way, as more people hear about you, they will find you on your site and you can use that traffic to build your audience and build your authority.
Step 3 - Install Sumo or Hello Bar
I’ve been a long time user of Sumo.
It’s been very helpful to me to grow my personal brand and even grow other companies I own like the Shadforth Group of companies. It’s a web application that lets you create tasteful pop-ups to incentivize people to sign up for your mailing list.
Recently though, I’ve switched over to the social share tools of Thrive Themes since it is much easier to use and loaded with integrated marketing plugins.
Understand this – website traffic is great. There is (almost) always value in increasing traffic to your website. But you need to be aware of the actual end goal. The goal is to build an audience. The goal is to build a tribe of people are looking for your next piece of content.
We don’t want fly by night web traffic. We want engaged people who are emotionally invested.
That’s why building your email list is so important.
Note – Be sure to test out the different pop-ups. The language you use is very important. Try different things. If it doesn’t work right away, don’t get frustrated. Sometimes you need to experiment to find out exactly what people want.
Be On The Lookout!
If you do decide to separate each of your chapters into their own pages, here's a suggested URL structure for you to use:
Step 4 - Create an Autoresponder to Sell Your Service or Product
You have a website, you’re creating content, you’re driving traffic and you’re collecting emails.
Now you are ready to make some cash money.
The next step is to write a detailed, well thought out and well-executed autoresponder series to your email subscribers.
An autoresponder is a chain of emails that automatically gets sent to people who sign up for your email. This creates an automated sales process.
But be careful – you don’t want to come across as too “salesy.” Here’s the formula.
- Email 1 – Introduce yourself. Tell them what to expect.
- Email 2 – Pitch your product. Introduce the problem you are trying to solve. No pressure.
- Email 3 – Send a free blog post or ebook. Something to add more value.
- Email 4 – Send a testimonial piece. A personal story on how your product or service provided such good results in the past.
- Email 5 – A discount code. If they’re still following this series, it means they want to buy but are hesitating. The discount code will bring in the stragglers.
From this point, you can go in many different directions.
Step 5 - Use Social Media to Drive Traffic to Your Site
The reason why most people waste money on social media ads is that they try to convert the traffic to a sale directly. To grow your personal brand, you want to use that traffic to build a community, build trust and build authority.
Sending traffic to a direct landing page with “buy this now” buttons all over it will only steer people away from your message.
Very rarely, do any of us buy anything the first time we see it. To properly create a return on your ad spend, you have to be willing to nurture your leads and invite them to become part of a community.
If your pop up is working well, you should already have a good idea of how much money you will need to pay per email signup. From that, you can do math further down the funnel to see how many email signups you need on average to convert a sale. From that point, figure out how much money you have to spend to convert a sale. This is how you find your CPA. (Cost per Acquisition)
If your CPA is at a 40% margin (or more), then spend as much money as you possibly can. When you crack the formula, you need to take advantage of it.
Apart from driving traffic through organic social media activity is the added benefit of your brand being listed as a result of social media search engine optimization.
Step 6 - Build Community to Scale
At this point, it’s rinse and repeat.
But the trick now is to be able to scale. In a perfect world, you will be able to exponentially grow because you can use your profits to create more lines of revenue. Or, you can simply bring down your cost of goods and lower your CPA to increase margins over time.
Whatever your strategy, it can be tempting to lose sight of your audience. Once business starts coming in, we can all easily forget about that “emotional investment” our audience has made with our brand.
You can’t lose that. Your audience is the backbone of your company because they will be the ones who spread your message for you.
So you must continue to provide for them. Continue to give them free content. Continue to keep them engaged through discussion or webinars. Give away free merchandise or have weekly video chats.
DO NOT LOSE YOUR AUDIENCE BECAUSE YOU GET TOO HUNG UP ON MAKING SALES!
It will kill your business.
Why Should You Trust Me?
Okay, I gave you my system. But why should you believe me? Why should you invest your time and money in something just because I say so?
Look, there are many ways to build a business. I’m not saying my way is the only way, I’m simply saying that this system has worked every single time I have properly executed on it.
In fact, the company that I have struggled with the most is the only company that I tried to go a different path. Currently, I am licking my wounds and trying to incorporate that back into my system.
Final Thoughts
By now, we should all be believers in the power of a personal brand. Your personal brand can be about anything you are passionate about. You can build a brand around travel, fitness, comic books, business, accounting, carpentry or even fashion.
Either way, by investing in yourself and growing your personal brand, you can position yourself for success for today and for years to come.
Who wouldn’t want that?