Are You Doing the Right Stuff to Market Your Business?
I frequently tell my clients and students that the real secret to getting clients is choosing a set of simple, effective marketing activities, and engaging in them consistently. “Okay,” folks often reply, “but how do I know that I’ve chosen the right marketing activities?” Here’s what you need to explore.
What Kind of Marketing Is Best?
The best marketing methods — the ones that really belong on your list of things to do every day or every week — are the ones that put you into direct contact with your target market. You speak with prospective clients in person, you talk to them on the phone, you write personal, not mass produced, letters or emails. You network; you build referral relationships; you speak in public.
What Does a Sales Conversation Sound Like?
A sales conversation is the exchange between you and a prospective client where you find out what the client needs, explain what you offer, and see if there’s a match between you. It’s neither a lecture nor arm-twisting; it’s a discussion between peers about an arrangement that will serve you both.
Here’s what a conversation like this sounds like in real life, with a few asides to note what you might learn from it.
Accountant Meg: Hi, Jack, this is Meg Jones, the small business accountant. How are you today? (Meg re-identifies herself to Jack. She also doesn’t launch right into a lengthy speech.)
Prospective Client Jack: I’m good, but a little busy right now.
Meg: I hope “busy” is good news for you. Do you have just a few minutes to talk about us working together? Last time we spoke you said you’d like to explore that idea. (She acknowledges Jack’s situation, but doesn’t just end the call. She asks permission to continue, and reminds him of a reason he may want to.)
Not Feeling the Marketing Love?
Ever have one of those days when you’re just not feelin’ it? You can’t seem to get yourself to do any marketing. The marketing you’re doing doesn’t feel inspiring. You’re not sure where to start to make things different. The thoughts swirling around in your head are making you suspect you might be a business fraud. Sounds like you’re not feeling the marketing love.
The good news is you can do something about it.
To minimize the days where you’re feeling out of sorts, marketing-wise, allow the following to serve as inspiration to help you feel the love again.
Come in from the Cold: Warm Up Your Marketing
Do you feel uncomfortable trying to market your business to strangers? Most of us do. Making cold calls, knocking on doors, or attending networking mixers where you don’t know a soul can be challenging or even painful. Happily, cold approaches like these are not all there is to marketing. In fact, you may never need to use them at all.
Perhaps you already know this, and have been marketing your business in other ways. For example, launching a website, exhibiting at trade shows, running pay-per-click ads, distributing flyers, sending emails and letters to people who don’t know you, or posting promos on social media. But all of those approaches are “cold” as well, and many of them can be expensive.
Whenever you are trying to start a marketing conversation with a stranger — with no introduction, referral, or shared connection to help you — it’s a cold approach, whether you make it on the phone, in a room, by mail, or online. And cold approaches, across the board, are less effective than warm ones.
Reinventing Success
How successful do you feel in your business?
Success has a certain vibe about it, one you can recognize and feel in your bones. And yet, it’s easy to live out of an outdated definition without realizing you’re doing it, making you feel unsuccessful. Have you looked at how you’re defining success recently? You might be ready to reinvent what success looks and feels like; updating your definition will do wonders for both your business and your psyche.
Four Consequences of Using the Wrong Marketing Strategy
Perhaps these questions sound familiar:
What happens if I use the wrong marketing strategy?
Is there such a thing as a wrong marketing strategy?
These questions are common if you’re a service-based business looking to market your services; it’s easy to think you’re doing marketing all wrong.
And maybe you are.
While there is no real right or wrong way when it comes to marketing your business, there is such a thing as choosing a marketing strategy that isn’t the right fit for you and your ideal customers – strategies that can make marketing feel harder – and this can have negative consequences.
Are You Hearing the Siren Song?
Recall this story of Ulysses: his ship is passing the Sirens who live along the rocky shore, and he asks his men to tie him to the mast so he won’t succumb to their Siren Song, smashing the ship into the rocks.
Flash forward to your business today and compare this story to your marketing. There are plenty of Sirens calling to you; are you in danger of smashing into the rocks and wrecking your business ship? Below are several Siren Songs, and how you can safely navigate through them.
The Write Way to Make Clients Believe in You
People need to believe in you in order to do business with you. They must believe that you know what you’re doing, that your services are on the up-and-up, that working with you will benefit them, and that investing in you is worth their time and money. Just how do you do that, though — build your believability?
One of my favorite ways to do this is through writing.
Writing is a vulnerable act; it requires you to put yourself out there and share your expertise in public. Even if your articles “only” appear in the church bulletin, you’re still going to unmask yourself, which is actually a good thing for your business.
Is Your Marketing Approach Incomplete?
Trying to implement a marketing approach that has critical elements missing is like trying to make a pie without the ingredients to form the crust. Or in some cases, without an oven to bake it in!
There are four essential elements every successful marketing approach must have:
- Strategy – What are you trying to do, and why?
- Tactic(s) – How will you do it?
- Tool(s) – What will you need to do it well?
- Medium or Venue – Where will you do it?
If any one of these ingredients is missing, your approach will be less effective than it could be, and in many cases, will fail completely. Here are four examples to show you where an incomplete marketing plan can go wrong.
I Had a Marketing Plan, But Then Life Happened
It happens to the best of us. We have brilliant plans for marketing our business, but the rest of life keeps getting in the way. We know we won’t succeed if we don’t spend time on marketing, but somehow days and weeks slip by, and our marketing to-do list gets longer instead of shorter.
