Better marketing – first things first!

Ignore the ghost of marketing past

If we want to do better marketing – marketing we can be proud of – first we have to recognise what it is, and what it isn’t.

In the past we’ve been led to believe that our marketing has to reach the maximum number of people. They’ll just have to see what we’re offering so that they’ll take it. If we tell (or sell) them enough features or benefits, they are bound to snap it up, right?

For some people, that’s true… it will be right for them and they may relate and sign up or purchase what we’re offering. That’s normally a pretty small number if we’re mass marketing though, because we’re yelling our message out at a whole lot of people who aren’t ‘our’ people. The effort (and expense) is wasted, and actually rather annoying, making people even less likely to engage with us in the future.

We can do better marketing than interrupting people when they are watching their favourite TV show. — The way we were: outdated, interruption style marketing.

I first studied marketing more than twenty years ago. The “Four Ps” – Product, Price, Promotion and Place – were everything. If those things were ticked off on our ‘marketing plan’ then we were sorted. We shoved our message in front of as many people as we could and hoped that if we annoyed enough people our sales and (more recently) our click-through rates would cover a multitude of sins.

We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto

Fortunately, in the era of technology and innovation we’re in, we don’t have to operate that way. With the resources we have, we are able to put our message in front of people we want to see it. More importantly, we can (and should) put it in front of the people who choose to see it.

If we continue to pursue the narrow definition of marketing we had in the past, we are relegating ourselves to the definition of crazy. You know the one “if we keep doing what we’re doing, we’ll keep getting what we’ve been getting”. Changing the flavour (or the tactic) used to annoy someone – no matter how new and shiny it is – will still annoy them. We’ll continue to be frustrated by our lack of results and have to live with marketing that we’re not proud of.

Marketing changes when we come to the realisation that we are here to serve others and to help them solve their problem (whatever that may be). To do that, we must know who they are, where to find them and then have their engagement and permission.

If we re-frame marketing starting with why we’re doing what we’re doing, it gives us a compass for what we do and how we do it. “Why am I providing the service that I am? Why am I selling what I’m selling?” What is it that truly drives you, gets you out of bed in the morning, or gets you the most fired up*?

If we know our ‘why’ and can define our ‘who’ then perhaps the new marketing mix starts with ‘Purpose’ followed closely by ‘People’ and what they give to us: ‘Permission’.

What’s it all about, Alfie?

Your purpose is to make an impact, you’re seeking to make change happen. It might be behavioural change (educating people to use less plastic, for example), it could be introducing a financial literacy curriculum into schools, or even changing the way a group interacts. That change might seem insignificant or it might be (literally) world changing, how big the change is doesn’t matter. Marketing is how that change can come about.

Marketing is the act of making change happen.
Seth Godin

If we want to do work we’re proud of, we have to understand the change we seek to make and find the people who want to take the journey with us.

Why, why, why…

If we really want to get back to ‘first things first’ then it’s about finding our reason why.

Before we can even start to think about marketing plans and reading the latest ‘how-to’ guides and getting our heads around what the next ‘quick fix’ of marketing is, we really have to understand the true reason we’re doing what we’re doing.

What is the change that you are seeking to make? Who can you help?

Helping passionate small business owners understand how to reach the people who need them and supporting those business owners to do better, more meaningful, ethical and welcome marketing, is mine.

What’s yours?

Write it down somewhere. Stick it up on your wall next to where you work. And please, if you would, let me know what it is – either here or on my Facebook page.

I’d love to know how I might support you to share your why.

*Simon Sinek explains this beautifully and simply in his “Starts with Why” TED Talk

The right approach to LinkedIn

There is a lot to be said for making the right approach

Overnight, I’ve accumulated 10 (count them) LinkedIn requests.

Clearly, I’m very desirable. 😉

But let’s get serious. Out of the ten people requesting to be linked, I have never met and don’t know 8 of them, I know OF one of them through sport (only by name, never met him) and one was a real estate agent who didn’t get the job of selling our house in Sydney nearly three years ago.

And, out of those ten people I don’t know, I got this message from 9 of them.

right approach to LinkedIN request message

Now, I don’t know about you, but my personal view on people I don’t know on LinkedIn is that if you can’t take the time to introduce yourself a little more than the cursory LinkedIN provided message, then I’m going to assume you’re trying to sell me something.

And I’m just not keen on that.

If LinkedIN is the “World’s largest professional network” it seems such a shame that the most professional approach a person might make towards a new contact is a form letter that is only one sentence long.

Now, I’m not against “linking up” with people I don’t know yet. What’s that old saying “strangers are only friends we haven’t met yet” (don’t totally agree, but that’s another topic altogether) but the gist is OK. There may well be people who are interesting enough and have some mutually beneficial reason to be “linked” – and in fact, may even be a sales person for a product or service I don’t know I need yet – but there’s a pretty good chance if that is going to happen, I’m going to want a little more of an introduction than “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn”.

Imagine being in a business networking meeting and you get to the part where you have tea or coffee at the end and do the “networking” part. Now imagine walking up to someone and saying “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn” … and the response is???

My response would be to stare and wonder whether I’d missed something. You know – the niceties, the courtesies, the introduction . Who are you? (Really.) What do you represent? Are you interested in me, or just in what you can sell me?

Meeting in an online ‘networking’ environment shouldn’t really be any different. If you’re linking up with someone you’ve met before, remind them of where you’ve met and exchange some pleasantries. If you’re linking up with someone you haven’t met, let them know something about yourself and show that you are interested in them as well (though not in a creepy stalker like way, that probably won’t go over too well either).

If you want to be part of my “most professional network” this is pretty important, but I also think that regardless of who you want to “friend” and on what network, a personal approach will go a long way. Although we are in a world of online networks which may seem disconnected, more and more it seems that in work and business who we want to work with is based on having a strong connection to people. It’s important to start out on the right foot.

And now I’m off to reply to the ONE person who took the right approach and wrote a personal introduction. My apologies to you David, for taking so long to get around to it. Busy, busy…

Onwards and upwards,

Heather x