What’s your marketing strategy?

If you haven’t really got past writing the odd blog article and posting on social media when you have time, you need to take some time out and put a proper marketing strategy in place.

OK – that sounds a bit like a teacher (or maybe your mum!)  But if you’re serious about business, marketing underpins every aspect of what your business does:

• Business goals
• Research & development
• Sales
• Purchasing
• Promotions
• Public relations
• Competitive analysis
• Demographics

These are all part of the marketing process.

For the purpose of this – let’s just focus on the part that relates to ensuring that your target audience gets to know, like and trust you.

There are, in essence, 5 steps to this – assuming you already have your business goals established.

Step 1:  Know your ideal client inside out

Who they are, what kind of business they own, who they serve, how many staff they have, what keeps them awake at night, what are these problems stopping them from achieving?

Step 2:  How can you help them?

How do you solve their problems and what is the impact of that for them?  They probably have more than one problem, although they may be related, be clear about exactly how you can help.  

It’s not just that the problem can be fixed, it’s the benefits they will get from it being fixed.

Step 3:  Where do they hang out?

When you are clear about who you are trying to attract, you’ll find life a lot easier if you go where they are and get noticed.  For instance, if your audience are crafters and hobbyists, you’ll struggle to get their attention on LinkedIn, but Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook are all good places to reach them.  Similarly, if you want to connect and impress HR managers, you’ll find they will be easier to engage on LinkedIn, particularly in groups where HR managers congregate to talk about their issues.

Step 4:  Take a look at all the tools that are available 

Before you start picking out the methods of reaching your audience, it’s wise to not only know the possibilities, but also to understand how they work.  These are a few:

Your website             Social media             Blogging

Newsletter             Email marketing             Marketing funnel

Podcasts                     Videos                             Webinars

PR                             Advertising                     Direct Mail

SEO                     Networking                     Joint ventures

Speaking                     Authorship

Step 5: Means, Manpower & Measurement

Now you can select the tools you plan to use, and you’ll also need to decide if you will do the work yourself, hire or train someone to do it or outsource some or all of it.  Start small and work up.

You’ll also need to decide how you will measure success – and give each one some time to bed in and start to deliver consistent results.  Marketing is a slow burn, not a quick hit.

Broadcast your message

If you aspire to get on the news programme’s sofa or be a feature on a magazine show on radio or TV, start locally.

There are dozens of local radio stations as well as regional TV stations and they’re all looking for interesting material for their listeners.

Do your research into what kind of programmes each station runs and consider who might be listening to or watching each one.  If you’re selling direct to other businesses you’ll probably find the morning shows (the breakfast show) or late afternoon/early evening (drive time) will work better in reaching your audience, than day time shows.  If any of the presenters has a regular business slot, that would be a good fit.  Also, sometimes there are evening talk shows that may be a good platform too.

If you can talk to the presenter that’s great, but a better bet might be the programme producer as they do a lot of planning of features and interviews.  

Check the station’s website for contact information – and don’t try and call during the actual show as they will have other things on their mind.

Alternative broadcasting

Radio and TV are no longer the only broadcast media available.  The world of podcasts and video interviewing is rapidly growing.

Of course, you could start your own podcast, but that will require a great deal of planning and you will need to grow an audience and then sustain it.  How much better to find existing podcasters who have already established their following and now are looking for interesting people to keep them engaged?

Go on iTunes or Spotify (or anywhere else that podcasts are hosted) and search under your key words.  You’ll find plenty of podcasts that target your ideal clients.  Now all you need to do is contact the host and suggest you’d like to discuss if you would be a good fit for them.  Some hosts have a questionnaire to complete, certainly the popular podcasts will have many potential guests lined up, keen to be involved.

Start with podcasts that are more modest.  If they have millions of followers and interview lots of well-known names in your industry or celebrities, you’ll probably struggle to even get into conversation with the host.  Look for podcasts with a decent following that feature ordinary business people with a message.  I have featured on several podcasts through meeting people on LinkedIn.

And don’t forget to check out the video channels for business hosts who do live interviews, either via online conferencing or face-to-face.  If you have an interesting subject or an unusual take on something that your clients (and their audience) will find useful, most podcast and video hosts are always looking for new material.

When is a newsletter not a newsletter?

 

Let’s get real here – none of us really want another boring newsletter cluttering up our inboxes.  Do you really need to know that we just had a team meeting or have a few exciting marketing projects in the pipeline?  No!  And I don’t want to know about your new team members or piece of equipment.

So – a good ‘newsletter’ isn’t actually a newsletter at all!

If you want to nurture the people who have signed up for your list you have to give them value.  Something that might help them in some way.  So here are five top tips for newsletters that get higher read rates and fewer unsubscribes.

1:  Plan ahead

If you get to newsletter time (whenever that is, whether you send something out weekly, monthly or less frequently) and you groan, invest in time planning the subject matter for your next 3-6 months newsletters.

If you have a system and structure things will get a whole lot easier.  You will at least have a starting point.  If your content isn’t topical then you could even have a half day once a quarter and write a batch.  Then you will just need to review and check the content before each issue actually goes out.

2: Lead with value

There are no rules that say you can’t include an offer, a promotion or some relevant (to your readers) news in your regular newsletter, but always deliver value first.

I use my blog content as lead articles as I always write blogs that are aimed to make online marketing and content writing easier.  However, it might be a process, a model, a template, some top tips or something else that will help your reader in some way.

3:  Create your own unique style

Write as you speak and imagine you’re chatting directly with the reader.  When you’re talking to someone live you don’t dive right in, you start with a preamble, setting the scene, getting into the why this came to mind.

While it’s sensible to ensure your spelling and punctuation are correct, a conversational style will be much easier to read.  If you think about what engages you – and what doesn’t – you know pompous corporate-speak is boring!

I’m on a couple of email lists where this has been done extremely well and I always looked forward to reading what they had to say next, it feels as though I’m checking in for a chat about their latest clever idea.  After all, there are a lot of people out there who do what you do, or something similar; it’s your ‘take’ on it that people are looking for.

4:  Be authentic and transparent

If you’re going to make an offer ONLY for people on your email list, ensure that it’s a genuine offer – and is only available to them.  Some people will check and it won’t do your reputation any good at all if they discover that you’re promoting the same offer on your website, on your social media and elsewhere.

People who have signed up for your list have already self-identified as being interested in what you have to offer, so make sure they don’t lose faith in you.

5:  There’s no rule that says a newsletter has to be long!

Say what you have to say and then stop. 

Don’t waffle.  Don’t fancy it up with lots of additional fluff.  Don’t try to write to a word count.  If it only takes you 50 words to get your message across, then that’s all you need to write.  Your readers will thank you for not wasting their precious time.