Ep #70 – This week on the podcast, I’m joined by Curt Maly, the founder of Black Box Social Media and a renowned Facebook advertising expert. Black Box is a “full-service” social media marketing agency that serves high profile individuals and companies, ranging from international motivational dpeakers to real estate investing gurus, reality TV stars to professional sports teams, and even bestselling authors.

After starting his career in real estate, Curt realized he could stand out from his competition by leveraging non-traditional advertising methods. His discoveries led to him founding Black Box Social Media with Nick Bridges, a fellow real estate investor.

Curt has been featured in a national real estate infomercial and is a contributing author in Mark Victor Hansen’s book, Writings From the Heart, which also featured contributions from the likes of Jim Rohn and Jeffery Combs.

The BELT method was pioneered by social media marketing strategy expert Curt Maly, and it’s disrupted the world of digital marketing ever since. Curt’s method is used primarily on Facebook, but it is an overarching strategy that can be applied to any social platform to attract new customers.

In this article, we break down what it stands for and how you can use it to attract customers, improve your advertising strategy, and maximize your profits. We will also reveal three words that will change your view of social media marketing entirely.

Belief is Key

The BELT method is actually an acronym, and its first step corresponds to its first letter – B, for belief. This step is all about getting your face out there and earning the trust of potential customers through repeated exposure and easy-to-follow introductions.

Let’s use the example of a realtor. Realtors often focus on selling the house at hand, the one they want people to buy. But Curt Maly’s strategy suggests doing something a little more counterintuitive and a lot more effective – selling your brand instead. Who are you? What do you stand for? Why should customers trust you to sell them a house or a good product?

If a customer believes in you, then the customer is more likely to buy a house from you. This belief can be achieved through content production. Putting together short, interesting videos on your business and yourself will catch the eye of potential clients and will attract more of them to your business. The more content, the better.

Engage Your Audience

Beyond the goal of generating interest, these videos also have to be informative and appealing. This is where the ‘E’ comes in for engagement. You want to make sure potential clients are getting content that informs them about your product in a succinct way. 

Videos of the top 10 frequently-asked-questions are especially helpful for this step. Make sure clients walk away from your short videos with a sense of who you are and what products you’re selling with as much detail and interest as possible. What are the most vital things they need to know about your brand? What information will keep them listening?

All of this hard work should bring you to the third letter.

Lead Them Into The Purchase

The third part of the BELT method is establishing a lead. Give them an enticing call-to-action about what you can do for them. Now you have a direct line from the content they’ve engaged with to your brand’s services. 

For example, the realtor can say, “If you’re tired of paying rent, let me help you find your dream home. I love to work with first-time home buyers.”

And here is where many businesses make a vital mistake: They narrow down that criteria. 

They say, “I am someone who loves selling houses with yellow paint or such-and-such specifications.” This eliminates potential clients before you’ve even had the chance of meeting them and figuring out if you could have found them their dream home, after all. 

If you instead approach it with the widest possible criteria that is still tailored to your services, your potential clients won’t be limited, and your business will flourish with the diversity.

This is how the whole BELT method works – creating a social media marketing strategy that brings in a wide range of customers and isn’t dependent on just one yellow house to make you known. You are dependent instead on building people’s belief in your brand, which allows you to sell them a rainbow of houses. 

This all leads us into the final step of the BELT method.

T is for Transaction

Transaction is where the money changes hands, and the customer gets what they want – whether it be a house or a car or any other type of product you can think of. 

In the end, both parties come away happy; even happier than they would have been, in fact, because they got your product rather than choosing someone else’s out of the fear that yours was not for them. 

How to Gain Exposure For Your Social Media Marketing Strategy

The biggest question people have coming away from the BELT method is: How do I get exposure for my videos in the first place? 

The answer is two-fold: Advertise to everyone, and don’t be afraid to go the costly route in order to build up your revenue in the long-run.

Widen Your Influence Across The Company

Say for example you sell rags that absorb oil from manufacturing machines. It’s a safe way to clean up and dispose of the oil. Right now, they just use sawdust, which is not only a huge waste but also a biohazard issue. You can revolutionize this outdated process, but first, you need to figure out where to begin advertising your solution.

Some people might be tempted to go straight to upper management and give them the pitch, but there is an even more effective way to gain the trust and approval of this manufacturer – give the pitch to the workers themselves. Put all the basics in a seven-minute video and make sure they know what you’re all about in a simple yet informative way. 

Now, you’ve got influence over the belief system of the company itself. You’ve hooked the workers and gotten the lead in their minds. There are people on your side who work on that floor, who get their shoes dirty from the dripping oil all the time. People who care about the environment and the waste they’re producing by working there.

These are the people who in the end will influence the purchasing manager the most because they are the ones who truly care whether this product gets bought or not.

Focus on Building Long-Term Customer Value

There is a reason that big companies like Coca-Cola have gained so much popularity in society, and it’s because they stay top of mind with the buyer.

This links to the essence of the BELT method. Most people just focus on selling the yellow house, and only make minimal profits as a result. They advertise with one or two videos and a little social media presence, because they are too focused on a single sale. What they should be doing is focusing on selling the result and building preference.

People are buying from you, so the more people notice you, the more people will buy from you. There have been studies that suggest people will only buy from a brand if they’ve seen it 20 times. So, while you may not see immediate results from your efforts, the trick is in creating as much content as you can and letting people find you in their own time.

Those Three Magic Words

At the beginning of this, we promised you three magic words that will bring you a new perspective on your social media marketing strategy. Here they are: 

Consumption equals conversion.

The more content of yours that people consume, the greater your conversion rate to long-term customers will be. This doesn’t mean overwhelming your audience, but instead welcoming them into the fold of your brand. Bring them in with courtesy and with a clear introduction of what you’re all about.

Make them believe in you. Engage them. Lead them to your services. Offer them transactions. 

In no time, you will have a successful brand to call your own.