What do I need to think about when marketing my business?

Marketing is all around you, it's everywhere you look. When you walk down the street and see a person giving out fliers or a sign for a new pizza restaurant down a back alley that’s all brand marketing. When you are online you are constantly being bombarded with so many adverts and offers that you probably don’t even notice half of them or give them a second of your time. A lot of social media platforms have turned into what seems an endless stream of adverts these days. Personally I think Facebook is the biggest culprit for direct marketing, you need to spend about 10 minutes deleting adverts before you even see a glimpse of your friends posts these days.

How many ads did you say per day?

In 2023 the average person will see 10,000 ads per day. That is almost unbelievable but true, according to recent research. Watch this, subscribe to this, buy this. Most of these adverts are not even relevant, we are getting so many that to be honest it’s probably easier than ever to ignore what you are seeing. People are bored of the never ending stream of adverts on their homepage and also suspicious of everything. There are so many people and businesses out there trying to sell you the next big thing or the next money making course that we have to have our bullshit gauge in full effect. 

Today, businesses have easier access to customers than ever before, with the major companies like Google and Facebook giving them direct marketing options and targeted access to consumers. You can pay per click, target who you want and the demographic that best suits your business and can throw your entire marketing budget at adverts. But does that mean that you are actually getting a return on your hard earned cash or are you just lining the pockets of the major companies. At the end of the day you need to make more money from the adverts than you spend on them otherwise it’s just a big vacuum of never ending wasted cash.

People need to build trust with a company before they will buy their product, they need to know that it will benefit them and make their life easier or better in order to engage with them. The old rule of marketing is that a customer needs to see your company seven times before they engage with you and trust you enough to buy. But in today's world, with the endless barrage of adverts is seven enough? Have the customers clocked the six other adverts? 

Rather than market to everybody you need to target a certain group of people, who will become your tribe of loyal followers. It’s much easier to talk to a smaller group of people than try to engage everyone at the same time.

You need to think about craving your own little niche in the market place and decide on who your business is aimed at and how you are going to make their life a bit better or easier. How are you going to improve their day to day struggle? You want to tell them about how you are going to change their status or improve their business.

Attract the early adopters

With the huge popularity of social media you want to try and attract the early adopters. Who are they early adopters I hear you ask? Well they are the type of people who camp out all night to get the first festival tickets. They are the people who bring their sleeping bags the night before a shop opening so that they can be the first to have the new Transformers toy. No, not just the massive geeks, these people are often referred to as the ‘Lighthouse’ customers as they are a beacon of light for other people to follow.

Early adopters of your product or service can not only offer a wealth of feedback for you about what is good and what needs to improve, but they can also help endorse your product online and tell their friends about your service. Their own word of mouth marketing can help grow your brand and boost your reputation as a business.

What should I be asking myself?

Below are a few questions you can try to help you start on your marketing journey. As a business you need to think about the following questions when developing an effective marketing strategy. 

1. Who is it for?
2. What is it for?
3. What story are you trying to tell?
4. What's the world view of your audience?
5. What are your audience scared of?
6. What change are you trying to make with your product or service?
7. How will it change the status of your audience?
8. How will you reach the early adopters?
9. How easily can they tell their friends?
10. What will they share about you to their friends?
11. What network will help propel your business online?

These questions will help you really delve deep into what it is you are trying to do and who it is you are trying to market to. At the end of the day you can’t market to everyone at once. So really trying to dial down and think deeply about who they are, what they need and where they hang out online can really save you a lot of time and headache in the future.

We would love the opportunity to talk to you in more detail about this as it is a process that we love to work through when we begin any marketing campaign here at VIVI Creative.