The Mission is Sales
The Goal is More Sales
Digital Sales Strategies for
Small & Medium Sized Businesses
Authors:
Robert Dumouchel www.smsrd.com
Joshua Erdman
2020
Professional Courtesy Edition
This is a limited publication version for Executives, Managers, and Marketing Professionals. We are sending this copy to you based on our observation of your interest in this topic. We would appreciate it if you would post any review of the book at Amazon
( https://www.amazon.com/Mission-Sales-Goal-more/dp/0998213926/ )
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Copyright 2020 Systems & Marketing Solutions Inc.
All Rights Reserved. Published simultaneously on Canada
Reproduction of translation of any part of this work beyond the permitted by second 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright active without permission of the copyright owner is unlawful. Request for permission of further information should be addressed to System & Marketing Solutions Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dumouchel, Robert, author.
Joshua Erdman, author.
The Mission is Sales: The Goal is more Sales
Includes bibliographical references page
ISBN
1. Digital Sales Title.
If you want to improve the digital sales performance of a small and medium sized business (SMB), then we want to be your marketing Yoda. For many SMBs marketing is a riddle wrapped in an enigma conjured up by black magic. Our goal is to give you the tools to unravel marketing and teach you how to use marketing to create an unfair advantage for your business.
Sales and Marketing conceptually share a lot with the military. They both run campaigns with strategies and tactics. They both must win battles and the hearts and minds of the population. The militarys campaigns and tactics executed in the fog of war. Sales and Marketing operates in the fog of the market. Our brand The Art of Word War is advice you can trust on your journey to market domination.
This is not a step by step how-to book because digital marketing changes at a mind-numbing pace. Our goal is to communicate the principles to improve your mastery of marketing. There are always people that can help you with the details but only you should control the strategy of your journey.
Throughout this book we tell stories because people remember stories. Stories help us communicate the moral of the story. We jealously guard our clients privacy, so we change businesses, persons, and industry names in our stories but not the facts and circumstances.
All businesses, at the most basic level, share the same mission and goal. The Mission is Sales. The Goal is more Sales. Everything else comes after that. We use the Plumbers as our business example in many areas because almost everyone has an understanding and experience with this business type. The concepts apply to any SMB (Small or Medium Sized Business).
Table of Contents
Word Wars
If your website address starts with www your business is locked in a Word War with your competitors. Like all wars, the winner will be the one that wins, not just the battles but also the hearts and minds of the people. As Iraq recently taught us it is very easy to win the battle and lose the war. The same is true in business.
Your weapons are your words and images and how you creatively and effectively deploy them. In the context of a Word War, words include anything that communicates a meaning to the market. This includes text, graphics, video, and audio. If it conveys a meaning to the market, then conceptually it is a word.
Word Wars are waged in search engines, social media, email, and any other form that communicates with the market. We share the same language, so every business has the same weapons. What creates the winner is their creative use of the strategy and tactics. Included in this is how you weave together the campaigns, battles, and follow through.
In Word Wars use earned and paid weapons. Data analysis is how we evaluate their effectiveness. Advertisements are paid while SEO is earned. Beginners often confuse earned with free. SEO is not free because labor is a cost. They confuse money with paid. Advertisements are paid for, but they consume more than just placement cost. There was creative labor on both sides that must be accounted for. Earned varies from Paid in the on-going placement cost but both have a one-time creative cost.
Business challenges are solved with creativity or cash. Small businesses normally have a shortage of cash and an abundance of creativity. Spend your creativity first and save your cash for those things you cannot earn. Creativity is not free because it requires labor and your time should never be considered free.
Word War Basic Training
Welcome to basic training; in 10 weeks the US Army will change you from a civilian to a soldier. This is an exhausting and exhilarating experience that will push you to your physical and physiological limits. Basic training is a universally shared life experience for all members of the Army. During this time your Drill Sergeant will give you everything you need and expect everything from you. In the Word War Army, you will learn the same thing - all the basics.
Word Wars are fought first and foremost in Search Engines and you must learn all about this battleground to survive combat and to take down your enemy. The first basic concept of word warfare is that tactical advantage comes from the high ground. In search engine terms the high ground is the first position. The advantage of the high ground has been recognized by military leaders since the dawn of time. As a battle evolves the holder of the high ground, also known as the first position, can change and many reports of poor performance start with We used to be first on Google followed by a desire for a plan to get back.
Battles in Google for the first position are epic and winning this requires that you understand the basics of how that high ground is won. First understand that there are many battles going on concurrently and independently. The SERP (Search Engine Results Page) consists of:
Section Name | Category |
Paid Ads aka Google Ads | Paid |
Organic | Earned |
Maps | Hybrid - earned and paid |
Images | Earned |
Video | Earned |
Shopping | Paid |
Local Services Ads | Paid |
Not all SERP sections exist for every search and there are new ones being tested all the time. For your basic training you just need to understand that there are lots of them that can be earned or paid for. These are organized by the order of training. Each one of these is a specialization that you might want to focus on in your AIT (Advanced Individual Training).