Marketing isn’t what you do after the product is finished (plus, grab my new digital workshop!).
The theme for this week has clearly been marketing! I’m releasing a digital workshop today, Marketing ReWired, click here to get the details on that. Or keep on reading!
One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is waiting until the plan is written, the product is completed, or the website is designed to consider their “marketing.”
Marketing isn’t something that happens once the real work is done.
Considering your marketing, right from the beginning, helps you make decisions, conduct experiments, communicate with the right people, and set prices.
Imagine you’re buying a home. Of course, you want the right location, the necessary number of bathrooms & bedrooms, and a great kitchen. And of course, you make sure the furnace & plumbing are in working order.
But before you even purchase the home, you consider the resale value. How could you improve the layout? Update the details? Add outdoor living? What factors make the property likely to increase in value on its own? Location, location, location?
Buying a home is an investment not unlike starting a business or even developing a new product. While you’re understandably focused on your own immediate desires, you also want to consider where you’ll be in a year, 5 years, or 10 years. You’re looking down the line to make sure your investment is sound.
And that you’re truly prepared for the next phase of life or business.
The only time you don’t consider resale value, is when you don’t ever plan to sell.
The only time you shouldn’t consider marketing when you’re starting a business or building a new product, is when you don’t ever plan to sell.
Marketing isn’t about getting the word out, it’s about making sure you don’t have to.
Remember, marketing is only one part promotion. True marketing considers your business’ purpose, people, and positioning too. It lays a foundation for decision-making. It turns products into viral phenomena. It puts more money in your pocket.
Want to incorporate marketing into your business, ideas, and products from day 1? Start by rewiring your marketing brain. Grab my brand new digital workshop, Marketing ReWired, for just $25.
Stop Getting the Word Out: Breaking Down a Space Cadet’s Marketing Success
Yesterday, I posted an interview with Stephanie Alford. She’s quadrupled her mailing list in 2 months, earned her first 5-figure month, and launched 2 incredibly successful continuity programs. All without formal marketing training, digital products, or premium coaching programs.
In fact, Stephanie isn’t a coach or business guru.
In my opinion, Stephanie’s success comes largely from the fact that she stopped trying to get the word out about her business and started positioning herself for success. She embraced the true meaning of marketing: delivering the best products to the best people at the best time. She shifted her relationship with her customers from one of salesperson to trusted leader.
Stephanie empowered herself and her customers.
Marketing isn’t all about getting the word out. Promotion is only one very small part of marketing. In order for marketing to be effective & engaging, you need to consider 4 P’s: purpose, people, position, and promotion.
Let’s take a look at how Stephanie used the 4 P’s jump start her business.
Purpose
Stephanie truly believes that knitting & crochet are shortcuts to world peace. Why? Knitting & crochet beg us to slow down, get grounded in a tactile way, and connect with each other as human beings.
A great example of this was how Stephanie’s temporary tattoos shifted the entire atmosphere of her retail booth at a recent show. Instead of seeing just one more place to buy yarn or just another dyer hawking her wares, people came into her booth to get a tattoo. They ended up talking to each other in line, connecting with people they would have never connected with outside this unique opportunity.
Now Stephanie’s business doesn’t just represent one more way to get their yarn fix, it represents fun, friendship, and purposeful interaction. That’s an experience that won’t soon be forgotten!
What could you do to create a greater focus on the purpose of your business?
People
Stephanie gets out & interacts with her customers regularly by attending retail & trade shows. One behavior she identified was that her potential customers would come into her both, eye the yarn, and exclaim, “But I don’t know what to do with it!” because Stephanie makes multi-colored yarn.
So instead of despairing, she educated. Stephanie put together an ebook that would teach her customers how to use hand-dyed yarn (it was edited by amazing business manager – she can edit yours too). That book – meant for education – turned into a sales tool!
It also lead to peer-to-peer sharing, meaning her work was seen by many more people than her product alone would attract. Knowing what her people needed and creating a professional tool to fill that need lead to a viral success!
How are your customers behaving that hinder sales? How could you change this behavior?
Position
Stephanie found even more success by plopping her business right in the middle of a major trend. In this case, it was mini-skeins. People wanted more, more, more and Stephanie was happy to position her products to be able to accommodate!
She created a continuity program (think yarn of the month club) that brings her a steady stream of income while giving her the opportunity to serve her customers in the best way possible. It’s not the type of offer everyone would want to make, but that’s the beauty of it!
Stephanie positioned herself in a unique way that benefitted her customers (and herself!).
How could you position your business outside the “usual” offers in your niche? How could you capitalize on a current trend?
Promotion
Stephanie doesn’t spend a lot of time on social media promoting her products. She doesn’t spend a lot of time blogging. She doesn’t spend a lot of money on advertising. She’s not too bothered by public relations.
Stephanie grounds her business in her purpose, people, and position so that every action she takes or idea she executes has the potential to bring in business. Her “promotion” happens on its own. Her marketing has a life of its own.
Now Stephanie is free to do what she loves.
How would your business be different if promotion was a passive task?
That’s how marketing should be. It’s much more about knowing your priorities & values on the inside of your business than it is about pushing them on the people outside of your business. If you center your day-to-day operations and your creative sparks around your purpose, people, and position, you’ll discover more & more ways that promotion can take care of itself.
Ready to focus on purpose-, people-, and position-driven marketing? Ready to stop getting the word out and start creating your own success? Check out my Marketing ReWired digital workshop.
What it takes to earn a 5-figure month dying yarn: Interview with Stephanie Alford
I was pleasantly surprised to find an email from Stephanie Alford waiting in my inbox a few months back. When I opened it, I found about 1000 words detailing the enormous success she had achieved in her business over the previous 6 months: quadrupling her mailing list, launching 2 successful continuity programs, and earning her first 5-figure month.
Now, what you need to know is that Stephanie isn’t trained in marketing, she’s not selling business advice, and she doesn’t have a $1k coaching program. Nope, Stephanie dyes yarn.
She’s the chief fiber advocate behind Space Cadet Creations.
Stephanie’s success epitomizes the possibilities that come from loving your product, believing in your purpose, knowing your people, and getting creative with a brand that suits you. In our interview you’ll find out how she:
- Created an ebook that become a viral marketing device, product education tool, and sales generator.
- Prioritized taking a risk as an investment in the growth of her business.
- Identified a trend & need in the market that she could capitalize on.
- Stood out in a sea of competitors who offer the same thing she does.
- Used a clever marketing idea to shift her relationship with customers & give them something with which to connect with each other.
Tomorrow, I’ll break down these points even further. Find my analysis here. But, for today, enjoy Stephanie’s story!
Visit Stephanie at Space Cadet Creations and follow her on Twitter.
Marketing isn’t about shouting.
Marketing is a quiet, excited whisper.
Marketing is an ear lent in service of a secret.
Marketing is a note passed between friends.
Shouting is for people who don’t know what they’re saying. I know, I’ve shouted plenty.
Shouting is bullying, coercion, lies.
Marketing foments movements, motivates action.
Marketing is showing up when needed.
Shouting is for a showdown.
Marketing is a humble offering.
Marketing is not advertising. It’s not the extra decibels that are needed to grab attention when the tv show takes a break.
Marketing is a conscious effort to discover & communicate the place where your customer’s acute needs & deepest desires meet your greatest strengths.
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I know you want more on getting the word out about your business. This Friday, I’m releasing a digital workshop on rewiring your marketing mind. It’s small but powerful. Stay tuned.
Are you pricing for results? Your customer’s, that is…
I love pricing for value. In other words, the value I provide you is so much greater than the value of the money you have to shell out to get it.
Pricing for value works because it leaves both parties feeling richer. I sell my service and receive the money I want. You receive my service and receive the information/ideas/action items you want. The “pain” it causes me to deliver the service is much less than the money I receive. The “pain” it causes you to pay the invoice is much less than the information you receive.
We both receive what’s valuable to us. And we’re both extremely happy people at the end of it all. And we’re likely to do business again.
But value is only half the equation. When pricing, you also have to consider how to get results.
A fresh life coach sets her rates at $50 per hour. That’s more than she’s ever made in her life per hour so she feels pretty good about it. She also knows that she can deliver loads of value for that $50. And, she’ll be $50 richer every time she sees a client.
That all sounds good, right?
But, “You’d be a fool not to buy this at this price” pricing can work against you. If your product or service requires some work from your clients or customers – and really, who’s doesn’t? – your pricing might be enabling complacency & inaction.
So that life coach might get some clients at that rate. But do those clients feel invested – both literally & figuratively – in the work? Or are they patting themselves on the back for just taking a step in the right direction?
On the flip side, the people who are most ready to do the work, the people who are the best clients for this coach, will look at the number and believe that this coach isn’t well-equipped to help them take the actions they need to take.
Fair? Nope, not at all. But just like I remind my toddler on a daily basis, “Reality isn’t fair.”
Whenever I price a new offer, for instance, my new Insight Intensives, I’m not only considering the value I’m offering, the time it takes me to prepare, my position in the market, or the benefit of my experience, but I’m also considering what price will create allow my clients to create the best results.
- What price will allow you to take this seriously?
- What price will ensure that you’re a success story?
- What price will push you past “comfortable” and into the discomfort of action?
If you’re a painter, what price will put your piece of art over the sofa? Or even get it hung at all?
If you’re a copywriter, what price will force your client out of cliche language & into what’s true to them?
If you’re a jewelry designer, what price will ensure your pieces get paired with fabulous outfits?
Sure, there’s quite a bit more that goes into those decisions. But don’t fool yourself that price isn’t a big factor in personal investment on all levels.
Start by pricing for value and then check yourself by pricing for results.
Are you using the greatest asset your business has?
The greatest asset your business has isn’t its products, your experience, the equipment in your studio, or the technology that makes it all go ’round. The greatest asset you have is your ability to connect people.
Business has a unique power to bring people together. We have the sense that we have more than a little in common with the person at Starbucks who orders the same drink that we do. And we may strike up conversations with other regulars at the neighborhood bar & grill. Main street businesses band together to create community activities that bring together whole towns. A simple ebook can spark an ongoing discussion on Twitter.
These person-to-person, customer-to-customer interactions are important.
No matter how trusted the business, no matter how respected the brand, a business-to-customer relationship will always have an air of quid pro quo about it.
I experience this firsthand all the time. I’ll be having a drink with someone at a conference or lunch with a friend I’ve met on Twitter. The conversation inevitably winds its way towards business. Once the other person realizes what’s happened, they often apologize and explain that they value my take on things but don’t want to take advantage of the situation. Take advantage? I love this stuff! No one needs to goad me into talking about business and I’m happy to lend a fresh perspective at any time.
But there it is, that sneaking suspicion that our personal connection may require a greater investment down the line. Not so, but it’s something I’m always aware of.
Instead, facilitate conversations within your tribe. These are genuine, peer-to-peer, incredibly enriching connections that help you do your job better.
How can I create conversations within my tribe?
First, look for opportunities for external connections. These conversations & relationships happen in the public sphere. They happen on social media, main street, book clubs, community events, conferences, etc… anywhere people are gathering is fair game for people talking to each about what you do.
Your aim here is for your customers or potential customers to be talking about your ideas or product, not the business itself. It’s not that that’s bad, it just doesn’t make for as meaningful of conversations.
How can you encourage external connections?
- Make an extraordinary product. Products that change people’s lives – even in small ways – give people a reason to talk to each other. Yes, this is classic word of mouth advertising. But it’s also spreading special tricks & techniques or creating a product culture (look at the conversation around Apple’s press conference this week).
- Offer up a symbol. Paul Tillich defined a symbol as something that “points beyond itself” to something mysterious or unknown. My iPhone is a symbol of Apple brand culture but it also points to an unbound sense of creativity & love of design. The #youeconomy hashtag is a symbol of my philosophy of the New Economy but also points to a sense of hope in the future.
- Deliver an innovative idea. Your rallying cry, manifesto, or great ambition is nothing if it can’t spark conversation & connection. Almost every day, I spot a conversation on The Art of Earning on Twitter or Facebook. The idea that “making money is beautiful” is fresh for many people and it’s a reason to celebrate, talk, laugh, and share.
Once you’ve nailed some opportunities for external connections, take a look at how you can foster internal connections. These conversations & relationships form within your tribe in secret or private places. If your business was a tree fort, these connections would be on the other side of the secret handshake.
Internal connections work because there’s a sense of exclusivity. Not everyone is in on these connections and the people that are feel a sense of shared purpose.
While this has always been a part of the way I craft offerings, never have I seen this come together more beautifully than in the program I’m running with Adam King, Make Your Mark. It’s a fairly small group and weighty material so everyone in the group is helping to each other accountable, witnessed, loved, and moving forward. It’s downright inspiring to watch. I feel privileged to be able to witness the conversations & connections happen every week.
The Make Your Mark participants will each be more successful in what they produce from the program because they are now a tight-knit community.
That’s the beauty of internal connections: they amplify the work you’re already doing.
Facebook groups, forums, in-person meet-ups, phone calls, Skype groups… you can create these opportunities in a multitude of ways. Experiment and find out what works best for your tribe.
Never underestimate the power of your ability to connect.
Connection is one of the major touch points of the You Economy. Moving forward, connecting with others through business will be a non-negotiable. In your business, you have no room to ignore the power you have to facilitate meaningful, positive connections between the people who use your services or buy your products.