Hey Square Readers,
We hope you had a great time reading The 1-Page Marketing Plan by Allan Dib with us. We had some really great discussion threads, and a wonderful live video chat discussion! Thank you all for participating and making this a welcoming and helpful place.
So we’re here now to bring it all together with a full book and discussion summary, with the parts that you all found to be the most important.
Let’s dive in!
A Quick Summary
This book by Allan Dib is full of practical business advice and strategy from the very start. While it’s called a Marketing Plan, it really encompasses ways to better run your business. The whole point of the book is to create an actionable step by step plan to better attract, retain, and grow your customer base.
We used our Book Club discussion threads to continue the practical side of this book by filling out our own 1-Page Marketing Plans.
We started with the first third of the book, Part 1: the Before or Prospect phase, where we figured out who our target market is, how best to describe our businesses to pitch to them, and where to actually promote ourselves based on their habits.
Next we jumped over to Part 2: the During or Lead phase, with creating a system and database for potential customers to sign up for more information, a strategy of creating educational and informational content, and a pathway of actually converting these people into buying something from you.
And we finished off writing out our plans with Part 3: the After or Customer phase, by creating a differentiating world class experience for your customers, increasing profits by making more money from each of your existing customers, and creating a system to have your customers refer their friends and family to you.
Here are some great quotes from the book that really dive into the heart of what the book is about.
We wrapped up the book with a more general discussion, talking about how you put your plan into action with practical things you’ve done in your business based on the book.
Live Discussion
We held our second Live Discussion on Tuesday July 25th, with 9 of our Readers hopping into a Google Meet to talk about the book. Thanks so much to all of you who joined!
From the very start of the call, folks started sharing the practical strategies they incorporated the book’s strategies into their businesses. Sellers shared their own experiences of successes and misses from these efforts. Everyone was extremely supportive and generous, sharing their best strategies to help eachother out with their business issues, referencing parts of the book along the way.
One seller shared that they’re having trouble getting customers to sign up for their email list, in line with a Lead Capture system from Chapter 4 of the book. Others shared ideas of incentivizing them to sign up with discounts, and using Square Marketing to capture emails legally. We also dove into recommendations for how frequently to send emails to keep things valuable and not annoy them, and settled on every 1-4 weeks.
Another seller share their Shock & Awe campaign of US postal mail as recommended in the book, and the success that it brought them with their customers. They did share that they weren’t able to get higher conversion through creating a limited time offer and sense of urgency, so they asked for some advice. So many of the other folks on the call jumped in to share ideas and what worked for them, and it was so wonderful to hear so many great strategies shared. Some ideas mentioned were to do it on social media rather than email, planning the urgency in advance around holidays, and setting a super clear call to action.
Overall, it was a wonderful call, and we hope to see even more folks in the next one!
We just started our next book, Hug your Haters by Jay Baer, with the next Live Discussion on Tuesday September 26th.
Your Thoughts
I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on this book and overall the experience of our first Square Readers Book Club book!
What discussions were your favorite?
What are you looking forward to with the next book?
It’s never too late to jump into any of our discussion threads and join in on the conversation!
Paying it Forward
If you’re all done with the book and are looking for something to do with a copy you bought, I highly recommend paying it forward. Give it to another local business owner, or donate it to a local used bookstore, community center, library, Little Free Library, or anywhere else, so someone else can benefit from it.
Thank you so much for all of your participation and discussion throughout the last two months! A big shoutout to some of our most active members: @Smellthis1919, @Moreplease, @DinaLRosenberg, @JUYBoutique20, @Spicec1, @scastrotattoo, @bonny, @CareyJo, @MissyL61, @Doran, @Starbuck, @BaileyD4SM, @Granny1, @alex1345, @JAP21, @LocavoreStore, @TheRealChipA, @QuokkaCoffee, @Tamyra_Paunchy, @rhodessportsbar, @TheArtChild, @Purple_HS, @HCLMMT, @Serenity35, @EstherSkinCo, and so many more!
We hope you read the next book with us, Hug your Haters by Jay Baer!
Can’t wait to read more with you,
Pesso
