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.
