6 Steps I Take To Make My Marketing Message More Effective
Digital space is too crowded and too noisy. Steps I take to make myself heard.
The digital world is a very crowded space. How can my marketing message stand out in all the noise? This is the question I frequently have when I start planning my next marketing activity.
It is extremely time-consuming to find ways to market a product that haven’t been mainstreamed yet. How can I hit my target audience right in the spot for them to consume my content and potentially become a customer of my product? Is another question that often pops in my head.
It’s not an easy task.
Call me old-fashioned, but I have stopped looking for ways to invent the wheel and, instead, put my energy into what works. There are certain essential truths that work in marketing — we only need to adapt them in the right ways.
Here are my 6 essentials that help me move closer to my target audience.
- Less about me, more about them. Potential consumers are looking for solutions to their problems. I cut off most of the flowery blah blah blah from my message because I know that my consumer wants to know how my product can solve their problem. Better of, I show it with real-life examples. Flowery blah blah blah is great for face-to-face meetings or if asked, in other cases, nobody wants to know that I am the best. People want to know that my best solutions will help with their most acute problems.
- Hit the right target. Throughout the years, I’ve learnt the importance of having a clearly defined target audience. Else, if my message doesn’t hit the right audience, it’s garbage. And frequently a waste of money. The key here is to appeal to your target audience and give them what they would want. If you only appeal to yourself and show what you want to show, chances are high your audience will ignore your message.
3. Educate, rather than hard-sell. In my content marketing strategy, I tend to focus on educating my potential customers, rather than hard-selling my solutions to them. The reason is that I want to become a thought-leader, a trusted expert in the field. I don’t need to tell my customers to buy things from me, I need to show why they should. Social media, content marketing (such as blogs) and newsletters are perfect for educating prospects. Leave hard-selling behind closed doors, once you have prospects in your hand.
In fact, if you educate them well enough, you may need no hard-selling strategies, because they will know why they need you.
4. Use other ways to market. Yes, social media is huge. But it’s also very crowded. Frequently, it brings no desired results (depending on what niche you’re in). That’s why it’s very important to keep in mind that there are alternatives and use them for your advantage. I consider social media as one of the components in my marketing strategy — never as a whole.
5. Don’t solely rely on paid ads. In fact, I try to grow my social media accounts organically. I know that this requires more efforts and takes much more time, but it’s a better strategy in the long run. Paid ads are great for specific engagement campaigns, but they serve little purpose in growing long-term, engaged audience.
Moreover, consumers become more and more immune to ads (due to an overwhelming number of ads we are exposed to on a daily basis). That’s why growing organically can be a much more effective way to connect with those who will truly care.
6. Talk to a person, not to a crowd. There is no space for non-personalised content in 2020. I use my voice to personally connect with my listener and I aim to hear what they are telling me. There are multiple ways to personalize the content, and some are more effective than the others.
Brands should learn to talk to a person, instead of shouting to the crowd.
These are the essentials that have proven to work. However, as a marketer, you should always look for ways to incorporate them into your marketing strategy.