A few months back, I read an interesting article about what makes a successful business. The author mentioned how important it is to know who your audience is and what they want. He also talked about knowing yourself as a person and putting that knowledge into action by acting upon your dreams and goals.
He then asked his readers to take a look at their own lives and see if they could find these two things. More often than not, we can't. At least, not fully.
We have limited parts of ourselves we showcase to the world, sometimes we don’t even realize there are parts of us we're keeping hidden away. We may think our jobs help fulfill us, but really, what we do for a living takes over everything else.
And with regard to people, many of us feel like we have to be someone other people expect us to be, instead of being those people who show up every day and make us happy.
I've got some big ideas today, let's put them into action.
As we've discussed, branding is creating or designing a strong identity for your business that people will associate with your product or service. With social media, this looks different for every individual user.
What makes someone follow you? How about if they don’t – what makes them stop listening to your messages?
Your answer to these questions should be determined by your business and what you're trying to get out of it. Take some time to think about who you are as an entrepreneur and what you want to convey to others.
This process can include things like: how you describe yourself in interviews, second jobs you have, anything written under your name (like blogs), etc. Being aware of who you are as a person will help tell your audience more about you and what you offer.
Branding isn't just something you do once and then forget about - it is always needed! It helps promote trust in your business, and creates consistency across all channels used to reach new customers.
Now that you have an idea of what kind of business you want to run, it is time to think about how to promote it. What channels will you use? What messages will you put out there?
To make the most of this new venture, you must first establish a marketing strategy. This should include all the ways you will advertise your business and the milestones you have planned for its success.
It can be difficult to know where to start when it comes to marketing, but do not worry! There are many ways to get some help from others in the field or via online resources. You could even create your own way to market your business!
Once you have found the necessary tools, got started, and invested in yourself by learning more about marketing, then you are ready to begin.
A well-marketed business has a clear marketing strategy that they stick to. They know what their goal is, and how to achieve it.
For example, my friend’s family restaurant knows its goal as making enough money so that her parents don’t have to work full time jobs to pay for school loans.
She also knows that getting people into her restaurant is a key way to make this happen. So she makes sure to put up pictures and descriptions of the food on social media sites like Facebook and Instagram.
Her parents don’t really do much advertising other than posting about the restaurant on all the local talk radio stations and putting up flyers at schools where students can eat free or very cheap.
Because of this, word gets around and lots of people come to their restaurant.
After you have an idea for what kind of business you want to run, you need to take it one step further and actually create those messages and advertisements. This includes creating your logo, picking your colors, and writing short descriptions or ads that will convey your message.
Having a good marketing strategy is more than just having a pretty picture and some catchy slogans. It takes time to develop and test your ideas to see which ones work and get results.
It can be difficult at first as there are so many ways to market yourself online, but don’t give up! Take your time to find out how to do effective marketing and eventually people will start recognizing you as an expert in your field.
A successful distributor will know how to reach their audience in ways that feel natural to them. They'll test out different strategies by doing random things with them, like posting pictures of themselves using the product on social media or putting up new advertisements for it.
The hardest part is deciding when to start promoting about your product! If you're already famous, then starting now would make sense. For other people, they may need to build up trust first until people believe they can be trusted to spend money on good products.
General marketing tips apply here: use keywords in your title and description, include lots of examples and testimonials, and link to pages where your potential customers can learn more about you and your product.
As mentioned earlier, marketing is more than just advertising. It is also includes engaging in conversations with people to gain knowledge and influence them into buying or at least supporting you and your products.
You can do this by blogging, posting comments on other blogs, responding to messages in social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, answering questions on forums, speaking at events, etc.
By interacting with others, you show an interest in their lives which creates trust and connects you to them. These individuals may eventually buy from you or even recommend you to others!
Interacting with different groups of people requires different levels of engagement and strategies depending on what kind of interaction you are having.
For example, writing a short article that addresses a topic related to yours does not require too much effort or time. You can write quickly and effectively without overthinking it.
As mentioned earlier, marketing is about offering a service to your audience or potential customers. You can do this through advertising, creating content people are likely to read, engaging in conversations on social media, etc.
But what kind of service you offer is just as important as how you position yourself and what you advertise.
You can be an advertiser for almost any product or service, but if you don’t know anything about making soap or shoes, then how could anyone trust you?
It sounds crazy I know, but it happens all the time. People who work in the beauty industry experience this every day!
Beauty gurus go through extensive training and take lots of courses before they're allowed to use certain products in their videos. They have to test them out and determine whether they worked or not for someone else.
Their reviews must say nothing fancy like "this product changed my life" because that wouldn't be true.
So yes, there are some online tutorials where people get paid more than we'll ever earn, but that doesn't make them good quality tips unless they are researched and verified.
Conversational marketing is another way to offer your services. By talking to others, you bring up new opportunities and strengthen relationships at the same time.
By leaving comments on blogs and answering questions on forums, you inspire conversation which creates buzz and exposure for your business.
A key part of any marketing strategy is knowing who you want to reach and what messages will appeal to them. Who are your targets? What types of products and services do they use or need?
You can be very general like "people over 25 years old" or "parents with kids" but that doesn't give you much insight into which brands would work for them.
By creating targeted content, you're more likely to see results. For example, if your target audience is parents looking to learn how to cook, then offering tips may win you some business. Or if they're looking to find new ways to teach their children about health, then talking about those strategies could be fruitful.
There are several good tools out there that help you create targeted campaigns. You can pick and choose which ones seem most relevant to you and your business.
