Good Afternoon, Savvy Entrepreneur,
Hope that you’ve been enjoying the short week and took some time off for Labor Day.
Today I want to talk with you a little bit about marketing strategy. Marketing strategy is SO important, because most marketers rush to employ marketing tactics, without first creating their strategy. As a result, they end up running down the wrong path, ending up even further from the solution they were seeking.
If you’ve ever read Seth Godin’s book “Meatball Sundae,” then you’ll understand exactly why most businesses fail when it comes to online marketing: it’s because they’re rushing to employ online tactics, without first taking the time to know what it is they’re actually doing in the first place.
Don’t make this mistake yourself.
I cannot stress this point to you enough. Strategy isn’t just some abstract term that only applies to chess and board games. Strategy is very real, and if you follow the advice I’m about to give you in this blog post, it will be the determining factor in terms of whether or not your marketing is successful.
By simply drawing up your strategy before creating your marketing, you’re already giving yourself a huge advantage over 99% of other businesses out there. Most marketers and most entrepreneurs all too often make a common mistake: they can’t help but project their ego into their marketing. Their advertising and marketing is all about standing up on a podium and shouting their name out to anyone who will listen.
Advertising sales is so easy because most people think that simply putting their name up on a big billboard is the essence of a good ad, and people who create ads or try to sell advertising space try to convince them of this as well.
A lot of people who are in the advertising and marketing business tell clients what they want to hear, instead of what they need to hear. That’s why so many hard-earned advertising dollars go to waste!
Avoid falling into this common trap like most businesses, and do this instead…
First, in order for you to create marketing that really resonates with customers (the kind that compels them to measurable action, such as buy your product), you have to train your mind to be able to see through the eyes of your customer. You should imagine yourself living their life, and imagine what it is like to BECOME them.
On the Marketing Strategy page of this website you may have read the idea of the “Customer Avatar.” That sounds like a cool concept, but what are we talking about exactly?
Your customer avatar is essentially an idealized version of your prospect. Having a “customer avatar” that you can speak one-to-one to through your advertising multiplies the potency of your ads by ten times, or more.
If you have experience selling your products and have past or current clients to draw from, you begin creating your customer avatar by describing your ideal customer. Describe someone who is a high-probability buyer, is very profitable, has a high conversion rate, is easy to deal with, perhaps they even send you the occasional referral.
Describe everything about him or her that you can. Lay out her personality traits, psychographics, demographics, her music preferences, the way that she dresses, the jokes that she finds funny, the type of music she listens to, whatever you can come up with.
So, what you could do, is to actually go out and find a group of your ideal prospects and ask them to share their perspective with you. Ask them what challenges they’re facing, what it is they want to see happen, and what they worry about.
Then, of all these different characteristics, figure out the seven traits that all of your prospects have in common. Then project all of these onto your idealized customer avatar, and give your avatar a name.
One technique I like to do is take out a piece of paper, and create a line down the middle. On the left hand side, I list of all of the specific, tangible, real “fears and frustrations” that my customer avatar is experiencing, based on some of the feedback received. On the right hand side, I list all of the “wants and aspirations” that my prospect is seeking.
By now you’ve taken the time to identify all of the characteristics of your ideal prospect and created your customer avatar. You are now poised to create good one-to-one advertising. It should be very obvious that your marketing speaks only to the ONE person reading it. It should feel as if your marketing was created only for them.
To build a strong state of rapport, it is TEN TIMES more effective to speak only to the person reading the ad then to try to advertise to a group of people.
From now on, every marketing piece, every blog post, video, or piece of copy should speak ONLY to that one customer avatar.
And what you’ll find, is that when you talk about problems or solutions in your advertising, even if a prospect hasn’t directly experienced it themselves, they can relate because their unconscious mind can verify that what you’re saying rings true.
This is VERY powerful.
Finally – if you can talk about mistakes that your customer is making, and they’re accurate, and they hit home and really ring true, then they can be VERY compelling.
In an upcoming blog post, I’ll reveal how to take your prospect’s mistakes and turn them into REALLY motivating advertising using a simple process. The kind of marketing that makes your prospect think, “Gee, I’ve got to get this problem solved RIGHT now, and buy this product!”
This technique so special, it will change your life in many positive ways as soon as you start using it. It will startle you with its effectiveness and simplicity. It will empower you to be far more successful, with less effort, in any marketing activity you choose.
So stay tuned, and come to this blog often so that you don’t miss it. Also, subscribe to this blog using the box on the right sidebar if you haven’t already.
Best to you in all of your business endeavors.
Danny Flood
Digital Marketing Consultant
