Digital marketing has long been a topic of discussion in IMOTWS, and our utmost intention is to educate all budding agency owners, freelancers, as well as entrepreneurs, and hold their hands until they reach their highest potential.
This is another venture to invite one of the industry experts to enlighten our community. In this article, you will know Sabri Suby’s ideas about digital marketing, or rather, business in general.
Sabri Suby, a 36 years old entrepreneur and the founder of Australia’s fastest-growing digital agency, is on a mission to bring change in the field of business and digital marketing all over the world.
Here’s a sneak peek of my conversation with him:
How did you become a guy known all over the world by just sitting in Melbourne? Do you have any plans or strategies?
No, I don’t think like that. I just think how can I help as many as possible solve the number one problem that all businesses face i.e how to get more customers? My impact is driven by the number of people I am able to rage profitably.
So for me, it is, how can I become a master at solving problems and being somebody that is worth listening to. So first, I do that by solving for my own business, helping my clients, etc. If you want to make an impact, you just naturally have to move outside of the geography you are located in.
How did you come up with all that crazy stuff?
I think about where people are and the reasons why they are not taking the desired steps I want them to, wherever that is in the funnel.
So, you look at what the journey is to take a stranger and then turn him/her into a paying client. You can look at all the steps in between that one needs to take place.
As you mark them out, you start to think about why that person is not taking the desired action, what objections I did not address, what is it that I need to do to that person to prove that taking the next step is the best logical thing for them to do, for them to reach the outcome they wanted.
Then, applying creativity to that thing, just thinking about how can I creatively attack this thing. I understand the word of tension in the economy: you got Tik Tok, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Reels, the Kardashians, Dan Bilzerian, the US, the cricket, all that stuff that is going on.
That is all buying for my person’s attention, the prospect is trying to rage. I am not trying to compete with a dude who is publishing a book or other marketing agencies.
I am trying to compete with everybody that’s competing for attention. I don’t think about it through the advertising mental model. I will lose if I do because I am just trying to do what business people do.
I am not trying to grab somebody, buy the eyeballs, and catch their attention. That’s the place you really need to be operating from.
How do you get crystal clear about your customer avatar?
I stalk them. So, having an avatar is not a certain fidget strategy. When I say who is your target market, it’s women who are between the ages of 25 & 35.
I understand that women at 25 are completely different from women at 35. So, you don’t know for sure. Each person is different during each period (Mondays and Fridays). So a setup for a single customer avatar will not work for a group of people.
If so, do you run 15-20 Facebook ads targeting different people at the same time?
I don’t micro filter that based on that targeting. When your target market is one specific person, people automatically assume that anybody that falls outside of that target market is not gonna buy.
So, just because my target market is a 36-year-old man, that doesn’t mean that I am not gonna get a 24 or 25-year-old man. It depends on the product that you market.
To identify a potential target market, you have to find the person who has urgent problems to solve, and then that’s who it is you want to talk to. And you still wanna have all the other stuff in there and everyone else in that market is still gonna resonate because you are talking about the fundamental truth that everyone faces.
But the person you target will feel like the marketer has read my Gmail and understands me exactly.
When it comes to “becoming known” which format should I follow? Do I need to first nurture the audience, then convert them and then remarket to them? What is the ideal approach?
It depends on the size of the commitment to the sale that you are going through. If you are selling high tickets, then there will be high stakes. One of the common mistakes people make is they dive right into the sale without taking the proper steps.
They have to offer a proper proposal, get to know their customers, and get them on board. Take the example of dating to marriage. It all depends on where and what you want to sell and how big your sales expectations are.
What would be a perfect marketing approach for coaches, trainers, and people in the training field?
My first step is to ask if they have more time or more money, and my approach would be based on that. If they don’t have more money, then they mostly have to use human capital as an investment.
If you go to an automated webinar funnel that’s gonna give you the highest Cost Per Lead (CPL), you’ll face several barriers. There are so many steps and barriers for people to get to the place your offer stands.
If you don’t have money or time, then this webinar approach will not work. So, the cheapest and the easiest way to get a lead is to get it on a telephone. “To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail”. If they think that webinars are the only way to get leads, then they will go broke soon.
Do you make money when the book you published reaches Vancouver from Melbourne?
It depends on how hard you push. Can you make money on the first end? Yes, you can.
Do entrepreneurs always need to think on a long-term basis? What do you tell entrepreneurs who are just starting out, with not much money or capital?
The more wide and long your time horizon is, the more success you will get. You have the right to have a long-term horizon. If you are just starting out, you might not have the ability to have a long-term horizon and waste money on the first end.
First, you should make some money and put some food on the table. After getting enough cash in the bank, you can hire a team member and get an office. Then build a business that serves a lot of people on a short-term horizon but adds more value in the long term.
Your ability to expand your time horizon is directly proportional to the success you want in the long term. Example of successful people (plan for decades and expect in decades but not in months)
Do you agree with Gary Vee about posting as much content as you can?
First, I don’t follow Gary Vee, and secondly, everyone follows a different approach (different horses for different causes). A lot of people putting in a lot of content are broke because Gary Vee asked them to post a lot of content.
For me, distribution matters a lot. I always operate from first principles, i.e. getting attention and solving problems. History does not agree with Gary Vee that posting a lot of content will help you get more attention.
Content will not help if it is not properly distributed. You should think about what is the best way to get attention and solve problems at the same time.
You have to choose your own right set of content (videos, reels, blogs), and make an offer to people to solve their problems and make money. But the final marketing approach depends on the question of whether you have more money or more time.
What do you like about running a digital marketing agency? What do you say to people who want to start a DM agency?
You have to have big horns, that’s for sure. Starting a digital marketing agency is a very difficult business to start because there will be a lot of moving parts. And firstly, you will face difficulties in getting potential clients.
The reason I like running it is that I think about how I can drive changes and how I can control as many factors of the different variables that are going to come into play for somebody to become successful in going online.
It’s great to think that I could just tell people what to do and they would go out there and do it. When you run an agency, it allows you to control many variables and be like you are doing those things.
And for me, it is like taking somebody that is struggling or stressed out of their mind or they don’t know where the next client is gonna come from and maybe they are getting clients but stressed out of different marketing approaches, taking them to a place of scarcity and moving a few things in the business that make them from making no money to making lots of money.
Taking them to a good business state, helping them achieve a good position, their family, and their team, and taking them to a place of abundance then they can give back. My important reason for starting an agency is to see that transformation.
My advice to people who are starting out is to make sure that they really know the subject. DM agencies are easy to start but not many know the real deal about it.
They don’t know how to solve the problems. A simple example is if you can’t solve your problems, you are in no position to solve others’. Do not go out and sell the theories of the DM you learned. First, practice and test them for your own agency.
Can people start an agency based on the specialization in which they worked for other clients? Will that work?
Yes, that will help them be in a position to help people. If you don’t have any prior experience and are just running with theories, you cannot do the learning with your clients’ dollars. That is not fair.
Under what criteria should people pay digital marketers?
People pay for what they value. If you are having problems getting people to pay you, then that’s because the value that you are providing is not greater than the price you are asking for. A lot of people take the easy route and reduce the price.
That’s not good. You should provide a value that is a lot greater than the price you ask for. There is always someone who quotes a price less than yours but they will not be able to offer greater value than yours.
What do you think about Micro Niche?
I understand the value of going with Micro Niche but it does not excite me. Because I like to go big. It depends on where you want to go and what the lifestyle you are trying to optimize looks like and how many clients & how much money you need to make in order to get there.
You have to think if you can get many clients within the niche you operate. If yes, then it may work. But if you want to attract more clients that are within the niche, then you have to go wide. The thing that drives me is not the conversion rate from the funnel. The goal is IMPACT.
I don’t want to impact a particular set of people. I want my message to reach everyone. But to operate in many niches, you need a whole new level of mastering. You should be able to make a sales message applicable to multiple markets. But at the end of the day, it totally depends on people and their goals.
Conclusion
This insightful conversation with Sabri Suby undoubtedly helps us get more ideas about online business, digital marketing, and entrepreneurship in general. Since Sabri is one of the top industry experts, his advice will benefit all budding entrepreneurs.
I hope you gained some valuable insight from this conversation. You can follow him; he has been providing knowledge all across his social media accounts.
Let us know in the comments what have you learned from this and what are you going to implement in your business from these ideas. We’d love to hear your ideas.
Meanwhile, you can also join our Internet Moguls Of The World School, where we help you to set yourself up for success, learn the key digital business concepts to thrive, and build an online business so that you can have more time for your family, more peace, and more financial freedom.
You can also follow our Internet Moguls of the World Podcast to learn more about starting your digital venture.