Marketing is a term that umbrellas many components. Anytime you promote your business, albeit word of mouth, social media, print or multi-channel campaigns, you are marketing. Overthinking (or under thinking) your marketing efforts can leave you chasing rabbit trails.
Here are 4 points to keep in mind.
1. Find Your People
If you’re selling nutritional supplements, you might find your target audience at a gym, but if you’re selling cupcakes, you might not have much luck (or, who knows, you might 😉). It’s important to know where your audience is, how they choose to find you, and how they spend money. Not everyone is going to be everywhere, which means you don’t need to market everywhere.
2. Keep it Simple
Clear, concise and to the point. A simple message is a clear message and your prospective clients need clarity to know what you do. Don’t over complicate your message. Truthfully, people don’t have the time or care to decipher what you do and there is plenty of competition out there ready to take their money. There’s no need to add flavor text or sound uber smart in your message.
3. Solve the Problem
Figure out what problem you need to solve for your customer and then speak to that solution. Business owners are proud of what they do (rightfully so), but sometimes too much of that comes through in their message. It’s ok to brag a little, but that is not going to be the hook that draws people to you. Let your credentials fall secondary and firstly tell your customers how you will provide the answer to the problem they need you to solve.
4. Stay on Brand
Branding is another umbrella term for many components. Branding is consistency – consistency in colors, visuals, tone of language, style of photos, fonts, filters, and graphics. Branding is how you communicate with the world. Strong and consistent branding is what builds trust with your audience. Your brand is what makes you unique to the competition. Start by establishing a brand guide and then align all of your marketing efforts to fit within it.
Everyone claims to be a guru in their field. If you aren’t ready to tackle branding and marketing on your own, find a trusted professional to shoot-it-straight with you to get the job done. Marketing is an analytic process, whereas branding is more creative but the two professions overlap in many ways. It’s important to find someone that is strongest in the areas that you want to develop a marketing plan in. Social media and website design is much different that developing a style guide or creating logos, which is also different from SEO and SEM, yet all of these pursuits could fall into the branding and marketing categories.
Know what questions to ask and work with someone that your feel is being honest about their specialties and short comings.
The Popwell Collection 