Ecommerce vs Service Marketing: What Happens After the Lead Comes In

Two of our clients had some of the biggest wins of their businesses this week. And it got my team and I thinking hard about one of the biggest gaps I see in service businesses: what happens to your marketing the moment a lead arrives.

What we cover:

• Why ecommerce and service marketing are fundamentally different
• The customer journey moment most service businesses completely ignore
• What TSC actually does from the moment an enquiry lands
• The one question every service business owner needs to ask themselves
• Event announcement: Cocktails and Conversations, Thursday 13 August, Auckland CBD

Links:

• Join the IHEE WhatsApp community
• Follow on Instagram: @inhererampireerapod
• Find Loren on LinkedIn: Loren Tomlinson
• Visit us at: inherempireera.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, and welcome to this Friday's episode of In Her Empire Era, brought to you by The Social Collective. I am your host, Lauren, back with another episode this week. And yes, I know it is a very, very delayed episode this week. I promise I have good reason. If you caught my episode on Tuesday, you will know that I was in Christchurch on Sunday speaking at the Winter New Zealand gift fairs. And by the time you listen to this episode, I will be either on a plane or have been on a plane down to Wellington for more work. So I'm flying here there and everywhere this week. And fitting in the podcast is, like I said a few episodes ago, it's one of those things that we've got to fit it in when we can. And I think it's really important to have um, I guess, really good systems and processes in place. And that's one of the things I'm going to touch on in today's episode. But also being able to give yourself a grace when life happens and life just goes, and suddenly you blink and it's Friday, and you're thinking, oh my goodness, I haven't recorded an episode this week because I've been prioritizing clients. I've been prioritizing getting our new In Her Empire era event live, which I am so excited to announce. Uh, we have our next uh event that's coming up. It's gonna be on Thursday, the 13th of August, held in the Auckland CBD. It is called Cocktails and Conversations, and it's all around the new AI era. It's gonna be a lot of conversations around marketing, around AI, around how I personally do not believe that AI is going to take our jobs. And I'm really excited about this one. We've got some amazing, amazing panelists that I will be announcing very soon. And it's just gonna be such a great epic night. So if you are keen to be part of a bigger conversation, connect with some other amazing women in business and female founders and senior leaders, this is the event for you. So I will drop the link in the show notes below. Make sure you snap up your tickets because spots are limited. And the last one, obviously, as you know, sold out super, super quick. The other thing I wanted to share is that our WhatsApp community group has been growing and expanding. And one of the things that we implemented this week that I'm really excited for is we opened a new chat section called Biz and Marketing Questions. And I would like to invite you, if you are listening to this episode and have a question, whether it's about the topic that I'm discussing or if it's just a general marketing or business question that you've got, I want you to jump into our WhatsApp group. The link is in the show notes. And I want you to tell us what your question is because I'm in there, my TSC team is in there, but there is also an amazing, growing community of female founders and senior leaders that are really hungry to help share their advice and help other people and make sure that we are all growing our empires together. So if you want to be an empress in the community, please head over to our WhatsApp channel and jump in there, introduce yourself, and let's get to know each other a little bit better. But today's episode, I'm going to keep it short and simple. I only have a few things I want to share today, but it is a conversation that I think is really important. And it's something that has been coming up a lot within the TSC team recently while we've been perfecting our frameworks and our systems and also looking at some epic, epic wins that we've had with some of our clients this week. We have had one of our clients, Shada, if you are listening, who has signed their 49th ever client, which is amazing. These are some big, epic, incredible projects that are happening. So massive congrats there. And another one of our clients who has closed a deal that they have been chasing. This is a huge, huge project and a huge deal that they have been working so hard on for the last three years. They brought us in about a year ago to really help elevate their marketing and bring them up to a standard where they could be sort of closing deals like this. And they closed this deal, like I said, that they've been chasing for the last three years. They closed that earlier this week. And to get a message from your clients when they have had some big wins in their business is, I honestly just think it's one of the most exciting moments. And because of these two clients in particular this week, we've done a lot of reflecting in the team on what I would like in particular to bring to the podcast and what kind of conversations we feel like are really important. And one of those in particular is the difference between marketing for e-commerce and service-based businesses. Because, in my opinion, they are really, really different. The social collective is, of course, running ads on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn and all of the things. I'm obviously getting served a lot of ads from our competitors and from other businesses that do very similar things to what we do. And one of the things that I notice that comes up so often is how a lot of marketing agencies, but also just businesses in general, obviously love to promote their success and their wins and the things that go well. Because of course, nobody wants to buy off anybody that's doom and gloom. But one of the things that I think is really important to recognize is when you are seeing ads that are promoting things like a ROAS. So R-O-A-S, for those of you who haven't heard of ROAS, which is return on ad spend, that is a very common metric in the e-commerce space. As a marketing agency, we have very much been navigating this this year since our pivot to focus predominantly on supporting service-based businesses, is the concept that you can make a direct sale from an ad. One of the biggest differences between e-com and service businesses is e-commerce, you can click through an ad and you can head straight to the checkout. Service, on the other hand, we don't necessarily have that same opportunity. Yes, there may be little sort of downloads that you can buy or a course that someone could sign up to, or a one-off coaching session, or something really low-ticket that you could push people to. But for the most part, those projects are not the kind of projects that somebody is going to do a quick strike payment for. They take a lot more conversation, a lot more nurturing. And the reason I want to bring it to the podcast is because why I'm very guilty of doing this myself. We compare ourselves to the success we see online. This week I followed a couple of brands who have had amazing success with their e-com businesses. They have been posting those videos that honestly I find very aesthetically pleasing to watch, where they're printing label after label after label for all of those postage labels. They're running them out of their printer, they're fanning them in their hands, they're celebrating all of the wins. And I'm so stoked for them. But I can't help but think sometimes when I watch that, oh, I wish I had that. And then I have to remind myself that first of all, Lauren, you don't have an e-commerce business. So you will never be printing out labels like that. Well, there was a time actually, and this is probably a story for another day. Jump into the um the WhatsApp community if you ever want to hear this story, and maybe I'll turn it into an episode. Uh, but I used to own an e-commerce business. I used to own an athleisure brand many, many moons ago. Um, so I do know what it's like to print out all of the stickers and do all of that kind of stuff. Um, and it is really, really fun, but it is also exhausting. And there's a reason that I no longer have that business, and there is a reason that I focus on the service-based space because it is where my true passion lies. But I think conversations like that are important from a mindset perspective. But the bigger conversation that I want to address in this episode today is the marketing side of things. And that's the importance of really understanding your customer journey, I think. And e-commerce is relatively easy because it's a very, very similar formula for a lot of brands. And what I mean by that is obviously you need to have all different types of social media content. So your UGC, your product photos, your videos, your founder-led stuff. So there's all of that that goes on on social media. Then with your email marketing, obviously it's pre them making their first purchase. Then we have our abandoned cart sequences, we have our post-purchase sequences, we have our re-engagement sequences for people that we haven't heard from in a while. You can put people on um subscriptions and be marketing that. So there's a lot of different things that you can obviously be promoting when it comes to um having an e-commerce brand. And then, of course, the power of advertising is that predominantly you'll be running conversion campaigns. And conversion campaigns, for those of you who haven't run them, are the core objective there is to get people to convert and to actually purchase. So the final destination is, of course, getting somebody to add to cart and then make that purchase through the checkout. So there's a couple of different campaigns that you can run. One is obviously focusing with the conversion metric on add to cart, and the other is a purchase. And those are two really, really common ways to advertise when it comes to an e-commerce brand. Services, on the other hand, we don't have that same luxury to be able to have somebody make a direct sale and then continue to market to them. So when I think about a really simple rinse and repeat process for an e-commerce brand, the process looks very different for service-based businesses. And yes, as a whole in general, there is a really simple framework that you can follow. And that's what we implement with our clients at TSC. But I think the more important thing is having the understanding of what happens within your business once that lead comes in. So, marketing from like an agency perspective, when we work with our clients, we're looking at making sure that your socials are communicating all of the right information. You have the right emails set up. So we've got something like a pop-up on your website, we've got an initial welcome sequence, we've got different automations if you've got different processes on your website, or if you've got any sort of lead magnets or downloads that people can access. We have newsletters that go up on platforms like LinkedIn and we lean into that side of things. And then, of course, from an advertising perspective, everything that we're doing is running lead generation campaigns because that is ultimately how we build our email database. That's how we grow our awareness. So for a lot of our clients, the big metrics that we focus on is um impressions and reach when it comes to LinkedIn. We're driving people to LinkedIn newsletters, we're driving people to sign-ups on a website, whether it's a pop-up form or it's a specific sort of sign-up page. And we're of course trying to get inquiries for these companies. Now, when I think about the two businesses this week that work within TSC that had these massive wins, there was no way the size of these leads and the size of these wins and clients that they've just signed were ever going to be the type of companies and organizations that would convert through a conversion campaign. So naturally, you have to get that much craftier when it comes to being a service-based business and recognizing how can I make sure that at every touch point of my customer journey, how can I make sure that I'm nurturing these people? And one of the things that we look at really intensely with our clients and for any service businesses listening, if you are working with a marketing agency or you've got a marketing assistant or coordinator or manager, ask them this question. And if it is you, ask yourself this question. Is once a lead comes in, what are we then doing? I'm gonna repeat that again. Once a lead comes in, what are we then doing? Because unlike an e-commerce business where when that conversion comes in, that is a sale made, then it's really up to the product to do a lot of the heavy lifting to get that person to want to come back. And then of course the marketing to kind of rally around it and support and bringing that person back to the checkout, or you might have subscriptions and things like that. But with a service-based business, that lead that comes in, yes, we could look at what the cost of the lead is and what value that brings us. But ultimately, that doesn't mean anything until that person signs on the dotted line. And often, like for the social collective, what that process looks like is an inquiry comes in. We have an inquiry, we then reach out to them instantly. We always aim to get in touch within a couple of minutes so that we can secure that lead opportunity. We then send them some more details about us. We send our credentials deck, we send our packages and pricing, and we also send a link to be able to book in a Zoom call with me. Then after that Zoom call, I follow up with a contract if it's something that we're going to go ahead with and if they're interested. And then once they've signed that contract, then they go into a beautiful welcome sequence where they get nurtured through all of the things that we need clients to do for onboarding. They jump on an onboarding session with Morgan, who's our senior account manager, and then we get started into creating their strategy and executing the work. So there is so much more that goes into the process for gathering and getting leads for service-based brands than there is for ecom. I'm not saying one is harder than the other. I'm just saying that all businesses need to do to really get the most out of their marketing isn't just looking at what happens up until the point I get my lead. It's really looking at how am I gathering that awareness and bringing in the right leads and continuing to nurture and support them to make sure that I am going to get that conversion. And I think that's the really important thing to be focusing on because so many businesses I see get the opportunity to have so many amazing leads that come in. But if you're not capitalizing on those opportunities to be reaching out to them, starting conversations, jumping on a phone call, following up with an email, you're going to let that new inquiry just go quiet. And the reason that I'm so big on making sure that this is the case is because inevitably, not every person that puts in their email address is going to convert. It's realistically going to take a wee while. For us, we know that on average, people will sit on our database for about six to 12 months mulling over when they're in the right position to outsource. And a lot of the time, they jump on the TSC database to start gathering information before they're actually ready. So by the time that they have decided that they're ready, we have continued to nurture them in the front half enough. So when they pop their details in as a lead, we also then have that process in the second half to really nurture them. Because the pipeline doesn't just stop being a pipeline just because somebody said yes. I think about with every client, it is a future referral, it's a future testimony, it's a repeat buyer or a repeat subscriber if you treat them like one. Because when, and some of the best feedback we've received lately is having clients say to us that we have a really slick, fantastic onboarding system. You need to continue to nurture your leads like they are your top quality leads from day one, because they are the ones that are going to be advocating for your brand and advocating around what it looks like. And ultimately, if you get a lead, you need to really put your best foot forward to actually get them in the door. So when I think about how we need to approach our marketing, it's kind of in two parts. There's the front end for lead generation, and then there's the back-end experience. So the front end for lead generation is everything up until you get the lead. And the back end experience is everything that happens post-lead. I don't think any of this has to be complicated when it comes to your marketing. I just think that it has to be really intentional. So, what I want to do is I guess leave you with a couple of questions from today's episode. And that is thinking about what does somebody receive from you between inquiring and signing? And what do they receive from you once they're a client? Because if you can really start to nail this back-end experience of working with your business and going from inquiring to signing and then signing to really being in the day-to-day of being a client. And when I say the day-to-day, I mean the ones that are like a good two, three, four months in there in the swing of things. How are we really kind of courting them and dating them and surprising them and making sure that they are just loving every minute of it? And of course, continuing that the whole way through. But I really want you to look at is there a gap there? Are you working really, really hard to bring in new leads and then letting them go dry? Are you working really hard in that front end and thinking, oh, I'm just nailing my marketing, but nothing else is happening afterwards? Because I can guarantee you, once you have a really strong back-end experience of your marketing post the lead coming in, the front half of it actually becomes that much easier because you know that you don't need to work nearly as hard because you're not losing people through the gaps. So to wrap up today's episode, I really want you to take a look at your whole marketing ecosystem and your marketing timeline, your marketing framework or your customer journey, whatever you want to call it. And I really want you to look at at any point across my whole marketing experience for my clients, does it stop? And I want you to think that if the answer is it stops when they inquire or it stops when they sign up, there might be a little bit of extra work to do. So that is where I'm gonna leave you for today's episode. If you have any questions, I would love to invite you to jump into our WhatsApp group and add them in the Biz and Marketing Conversations chit-chat. That is your space to continue to connect with other amazing empresses and all of the people that are in that group. But if you don't feel comfortable posting it in there, drop us a message on Instagram or you can email us now at info at inherempire.com. So I'm gonna leave you there for today, but don't forget to go snap up your tickets for our next event. It's happening on Thursday, the 13th of August. All of the details are at inherempireera.com, or you can hit me up everywhere you know where to find me. But that is everything for today. Go out there, make sure that your front half and your back half of your business marketing ecosystems are looking really strong. And I will see you back here next week for another episode. Bye, guys.