I’ve been talking with people about  what’s coming up and everyone wants this step-by-step easy way to go through business and life.

I understand we need direction we need focus; we’re all in love with this idea of setting goals and what happens is the unexpected.

Because when you base your ideas your business rolling it out simply on goals and something comes up a lot of times people will try to prove the goal right and what I mean by that is something comes up and you learn to adapt but instead of adapting some people say wait….

this is my goal I’ve got to prove it

This is just part of proving process and what I’ve really found in growth generation particularly which is what I work on with people.

I sit down in an unconventional setting and develop a custom solution for them that ties together the way that they communicate with people their messages and how they build their tribe.

Their audience how they really connect with people so while that’s all good you want to set those goals don’t get me wrong goals give you a direction and a focus what they also can do is get you so overly focused on what’s working that you don’t pay attention to what else might work because here’s what I’ve learned from doing this business for way too long….

the first idea you have rarely is the right one.

In fact if it is successful right away a lot of times it’s not a good sign because it can’t stay most businesses build growing slowly but surely and building up and what I want to share with you today is not that have those goals to be something as not having a direction but to not let the goals be the definition of your business.

Because when you go out and start adapting, you’ll see it’s not a straight line – it’s not step by step = I wish it was but it never ever is.

Look at any business, Google began by doing search but they didn’t really get big till they bought a company and created AdWords.

Pinterest began almost as a shopping cart and turned into one of the best visual tools. Rarely

is your first idea right; rarely is your goal necessarily aligned with the best way to do things and all I wanted to say in growth generation is it’s all about growth.

It’s all about adapting growing and seeing what you can do better and improving it and adapting your goals every 90 days.

Or whatever period allows you to test a goal before following the goal…

The post Adapt and make your goals prove themselves true. appeared first on Declan Dunn.

Facebook marketing continues to grow, morph, and dominate with Google. Find out how to get Facebook marketing going, even if you don’t spend a dime on ads. Facebook Audience Insights can open doors to targeting, customers, and what your first steps should be….

The first step is where confusion often arises because it is the top, not the bottom, of the funnel. Many assume you just buy ads or put out content driven by search, and the customer is immediately ready to buy (as they are in the bottom of the funnel).

In this first step alone, it takes an average company 1-6 months to begin defining the problem, before starting to evaluate solutions. If you throw an ad or content at them, with the intention to convert them to purchase, at this stage they are not ready to make that decision.

It’s better to create steady streams of content that build search traffic. Search traffic is an ongoing asset for your company, because it delivers new visitors year after year at a much cheaper cost compared to the price of AdWords. It also begins to create those 10-20 contacts between your customer and a purchase.

By simply creating content around the keywords and topics your audience finds interesting, you can introduce yourself to the audience.

Who Dev Exercise – who should you target?

This is a life science marketing example below

5 “new” skills to add – though not all new:

We have lots of data, but not lots of people who understand the long view this data demands.

It’s both.

Who specifically, by Job Title?

In larger companies, C-Level executives may be involved in the decision.

What Industry?  Education, Biotechnology, or Healthcare for example.

Where? Many companies are clustered around major cities in North American and Europe. Target them locally, so you know when to communicate and what style/tone will work for that market.

Moving beyond demographics into specific behaviors – repeat actions people take online and offline – leads to personalization. Start with the basics and find the 3 behaviors that turn those basics into customers.

The post Mini Facebook marketing case study and Growth Generation podcast #2 appeared first on Declan Dunn.

Growth Generation is about creating 3 growth marketing experiences; your personal one, your outsourcers and employees and even family and friends, and the customer experience in meeting, learning, and doing business with you.

4 Content Strategy Lessons, 50 million visitors and 20 years later

I’ve been helping cure expertitis, an affliction where the person learning follows and copies someone else’s model, instead of using that to invent and execute their own model. The result is confusion, wasted time, and wilting business.

Growth Generation plants a seed in you, because you are the answer, you taking actions that you have the capability to execute. Learning by doing is the best way to learn, so why are so many stuck in the 20th century model of follow the guru?

Returning to my roots as a mentor and educator, for the past few years I’ve been developing experiential learning systems, and applying them in small and large businesses.

What is Growth Generation?

If you want to seriously grow your marketing you will need a tested, well thought out plan. This podcast serves as the framework for your plan.

When you listen to this podcast, each week you’ll have a guide showing you:

Skipping any part of this 3-step marketing plan will seriously impact your ability to create customers.

Maybe you’ll follow your boss’s whim, throw money at AdWords with conversion to customer rates that don’t match your 30-day results, because the audience doesn’t know you and isn’t ready to buy right now!

Growth marketing is not rocket science, but it is a simple science:

The Plan begins and continues with content marketing; if you don’t do it, research who is doing it. Leverage content research to deeply understand your competition and learn how to differentiate yourself. But if you don’t create content, you won’t be found on search or social media or anywhere people look to before purchasing.

For the past 5 years, Growth marketing has revealed the Average Customer Journey, from first contact to becoming a customer, takes 90 Days to over a year to close. That means that your target audience is not waiting to buy, or even requesting quotes and demos because they are interested now.

They are figuring things out, like you. You need to gain their trust and guide them because only 1 out of 3 people in your funnel are even ready to purchase, or to move the purchase inside their organization to get approvals.

Here’s the way to do it, the scientific way, that begins with people.

The post Growth marketing: What is the Growth Generation Podcast about? appeared first on Declan Dunn.

You want to share your story, so you begin writing it down, separate from your audience. You try to deliver something to make them notice.

What you’re doing is pitching darts at a target that doesn’t exist, because the dynamic nature of content marketing and social media means the old ways don’t work.

Broadcasting tons of content is one old way that is dying, being replaced by a focus on listening, responding, and following up.

In this first podcast, I share my Origin Story, how I learned to build a community teaching 50 million teachers and students with no funding, and no original content.

It’s called Culture Sculpture, letting the audience share their story, and a weekly podcast.

What’s your story?

The post Culture Sculpture Podcast – The Origin Story appeared first on Declan Dunn.

You’ve heard about building communities by creating your own content, yet look around and except for a few celebrities and Interwebs celebrities, that model doesn’t often work because the audience is watching instead of participating.

In this podcast (edited from my Origin Story), I’m sharing the 4 lessons learned in building an organic community built entirely by content donated by the audience.

The true genius, the real experts, are your audience. And it’s not that hard to get them to share, and then get their friends to share more.

Take a listen and let me know your questions.

The post 4 Content Strategy Lessons, 50 million visitors and 20 years later appeared first on Declan Dunn.

Interviews are one of the best ways to generate content and connect you to people in this world increasingly driven by social media. What I found in my mentoring over the past 5 years is that most people – myself included – really didn’t know how to conduct an interview, how to make it flow, and most importantly how to listen.

I’m sharing this video excerpt – focusing on  How to Create an Interview That Generates Results & Joint Ventures PDF document that accompanies this…feel free to download this and use it to set up your next interviews.

While this video whitepaper shares my viewpoint, the most important insight for me is to develop your listening skills and to ask good questions, and make the person you are interviewing feel comfortable and in a place where they can share their insights, their talents, and most importantly, helps them really let you know how it works for them.

Watch the video, you can also download the audio only version here.

I’m sure you have questions about interviewing other people, via Skype, video, etc….I’ve found that with longer interviews unless you can include some visuals, it’s best to share it as audio.  What’s your biggest challenge with interviews? Can I help shed some answers to your questions?

If you’d like to know how to use email effectively, in conjunction with this video, check out this post

The post How to Create an Interview That Generates Results & Joint Ventures appeared first on Declan Dunn.

“I think being mainstream is probably a detriment.  You don’t have a particular audience to go for so you do what the movie studios do, you have to spray everybody, which costs you a fortune.” Stephen Simon, founder, Spiritual Cinema Circle (first audio interview excerpt below is about 8 minutes).

Then I learned that within months of opening, they had 3,000 subscribers at about $20 a month, and I believe this rose to near 30,000 when they were acquired by Gaiam in 2006.

This was one of my first projects after leaving the hard core world of lead generation, CPA deals, and affiliate marketing.  This project helped me understand the power of the niche and of small teams, and in an amazing way, the ability of dreams to become real.  Just listen to this interview and you’ll understand what I mean.

Think of this when you try to go mainstream, or bash people with your old school tactics in social media.  There is a change, and it is profitable.

Believe it…Stephen Simon did, and does, and it’s all driven by Friends.

The post New Media Niche Discovery #2 – Spiritual Cinema Circle Audio Interview (You Don’t Have to Spray to Succeed) appeared first on Declan Dunn.