These are messy times. Marketing ideas might be your business’s only vaccine. Here’s 5 upside down marketing ideas.
How you see this challenge will determine how you finish this challenge.
I’ll start with the not so obvious.
Crisis always dances with opportunity. Every problem is waiting for a solution.
Darkness makes the light. Monsters make the hero. The bad guy makes the good guy. Your enemy is your friend. Your competitor is your teammate.
Yes, people are dying, and that hurts. I lost a friend and it sucks big time, a life cut short by a stupid virus. It’s bullshit.
But if you’re reading this, it’s an opportunity. It’s the only perspective that makes sense. Without it, you’ll crawl up in a ball, sit in a corner, and eat Doritos, and 5 bags, maybe 10, you’ll regret the shit out of it. You can never get that stuff off your hands.
Life will keep asking more of you. Sometimes, it’s a small ask. Open the door. Say I like your shoes. You can do it. Thank you. Sometimes, it’s a big ass ask. Grow up. Change your mindset. Become who you are. Serve life. Stop wasting your life. Live bigger.
Of course, this is going on all the time. Life doesn’t shut up.
We go about our daily life and do our thing. The signs are there: an intimation, a call, a chance meeting, a small way to make a big difference… We just miss the signs. I’ve got shit going on. Bills to pay. People to see. I’ll start tomorrow. The call can wait. I’m not ready.
A crisis adds the neon.
You can’t miss that shit. That green color will not leave your head. Doritos are not enough.
So, this pause is a time to reboot, a chance to reframe your business and life. This pandemic might be your biggest opportunity.
Being in business means change, now more than ever. Your marketing might shift towards online channels. It doesn’t make connection any less important.
Your sales process might go more faceless. It doesn’t make the face of your business any less important.
This I know.
Business that are the same post Covid as they were pre Covid will slip. If you stagnate, you’re losing ground. If you change, you’re like Dumb and Dumber: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance.”
Yes, not only a chance, an opportunity to reshape your business into something that is more meaningful and more profitable than without Covid-19.
How much you change is up to you. But, like Yoda said, kind of, “Grow up, you must.” Every other option blows.
It might be short term change. It might be long term. It might be a subtle shift. It might involve your tectonic plates.
Change you must.
So, here are 5 Marketing Ideas that won’t cost you a dime, will change your marketing, might save your business, and might change your life. Yoda would approve.
Marketing Ideas #1 – It’s A Noisy, Distracted, and Skeptical World.
This is one of those marketing ideas that’s more reality check than idea.
It’s a noisy world.
Depending on who you believe, your prospect’s get about 5,000 marketing messages a day. That’s 312 per waking hour, 5 a minute. That seems excessive to me. Even at 500 per day, that’s about 31 per waking hour, about one every two minutes.
The point is that, either way, it’s a shitload, and that’s the arena you’re entering.
But way, there’s more.
It’s a distracted world.
The average adult attention span is less than a goldfish, about 8 seconds. Again, that seems high , but we’ll go with it.
So, your prospect is bombed with messages, and jumps from message to message, rarely landing anywhere for longer than 8 seconds.
It’s a skeptical world.
Less than 25% of consumers trust a print ad. It’s even worse for digital ads.
Here’s the hard truth. Unless you’re already a trusted voice in your niche, no one believes you. You believe you. Your mom believes you. You think your prospects believe you. They don’t. Maybe they will, but not right now.
You’re guilty until proven innocent.
Why does all this matter?
What’s important is that you fully understand that you are entering a bloody, distracted and skeptical battlefield, and if you do what everybody else does – scream me, me, me in escalating crescendos – you’re screwed. You’re just more noise.
This is not meant to kill your dream. It’s intended to prepare you for the journey.
Before you pack up the wood paneled station wagon, you should have an idea what’s ahead. Get those Triple A Maps out. Spread them out on the hood of car. Have an idea where there’s a Motel 6 with a pool.
In marketing, like life, knowledge and humility are powerful tools.
Marketing Ideas #2 – You’re Not Selling What Think You’re Selling.
This falls under counter intuitive marketing ideas.
Ask a used car salesperson what he sells, and he’ll say “cars.” Ask a table maker what she sells, and she’ll say “tables.”
You might sell that your car is better. Faster. Sexier. A babe magnet. Your table might be better. Better wood. More craftsy. Better for sex. More contoured.
Winning the better game is a blood battlefield. Someone will soon come out with an even more contoured table, then an interactive table…
You’re not selling a product or service.
They might have been right back in the days of limited media channels and a captive audience. When the family was sitting around the television set watching “Gunsmoke,” you could sell your car. You could sell your color television set.
Today, with unlimited media channels, about an 8 second window, and a skeptical, sometimes hostile, crowd, there is no campfire. There is chaos.
What you’re selling is trust. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in. It doesn’t matter if you’re online, offline, long sales cycle, short sales cycle, B to B, B to C…
You’re selling trust first. Values second. Product or service third. You last.
We’re all in the trust business. We’re also all in the value business, but more on that later.
If you’re a small business, your marketing’s job, it’s sole and soul purpose, is to position and develop your business as the trusted advisor in you niche.
As a Trusted Advisor, you have fewer headaches per dollar, and more impact per dollar. You fight less, and dance more. You get heard in a noisy world. You’re the clear note.
As a Trusted Advisor, you thrive; everything else is survive.
Marketing Ideas #3 – It’s About The Problem.
One of the strangest marketing ideas is that your marketing is not about you, nor your product nor service.
It’s not about your product. It’s not about your service. It’s not about you logo, not even your tagline, not yet.
Here’s the hard truth. No one cares.
I’m wrong. You care. You spent years getting ready, maybe a decade or more. I know. You care like a Mofo. No one else does. Well, your mom cares.
Still, and this hurts, none of your prospects care. You want them to care. Maybe they should care, but they don’t, not yet.
What your prospect cares about is his problem, her challenges and dreams. They care about their shit, not your shit.
What keeps them up at night? When their feet hit the floor, what is the conversation in their head. When they’re stuck on the 405, what is spinning their inner wheel?
It’s not just the outside problem. Every outside has in inside.
It’s not just about lack of money, or getting a new car. It’s about, for example, freedom and a new self identity. It’s about realizing their potential. It’s about feeling full alive. It’s all of it.
The better you know all the levels, the better you can clearly speak to their problems, the more you will cut through the noise. The more you cut through the noise, the deeper bond you’ll develop. The deeper the bond – you guessed it – you become The Trusted Advisor.
Here is the flip side of all this. It’s not about you, not yet. This is hard.
Yes, your work matters. Your education matters. Your experience matters. Your interesting, never seen before way to solve the problem matters, but not yet.
Bring that in too early into the conversation and you’re the noise, a huckster selling snake oil at a circus. Wait, let the relationship develop, and you’re Moses leading the people from the desert to the promised land. You are the valued solution, the water that puts out the fire.
Marketing Ideas #4 – The Customer Is The Hero.
This is another one of those hard to grasp marketing ideas.
Your marketing is not about you. It’s about your prospect.
Your customer is Luke. You are Obi-Wan. The customer is the hero. You are the guide.
Don’t confuse the two. 98% of businesses do. That’s the noise.
Your marketing is about solving the hero’s, your customer’s, problem. You help your customer get from here to there. You are the guide that has a solution. You facilitate the change.
Apple helps cool people do cool things. AirBnB helps people have adventures. Harley Davidson helps grown ass adults feel like kids again.
Read Joseph Campbells’ “The Hero With A Thousand Faces, ” Sachs’ Story Wars, Christopher Booker’s “The Seven Basic Plots,” Mead’s and Pearson’s “The Hero and The Outlaw.”
All say the same thing. The customer is Luke. You are Obi-Wan.
Now, make everything you do – website, brochures, business card, presentations… – reflect that relationship.
You’ll get heard. You’ll make a difference. You’ll make money.
Marketing Ideas #5 – Enter The Conversation That’s Going On In Your Customer’s Mind.
This is from Robert Collier, a pre-internet marketing legend.
Collier said that a good marketing piece starts with “always enter the conversation already taking place in the customer’s mind.”
What this means, of course, is that your prospect has a conversation going on. They’re troubled. Something is not right on the Homefront, and maybe they’re looking for the Calvary.
Deeply understand that problem, understand that conversation better than your prospect, and you’ll get heard. Help your prospect to see that conversation in a new light, change their perspective on the problem, and you’re on your way to becoming the trusted advisor.
Nothing happens until you hear, even the whispers, of that internal dialogue.
So, instead of creating the demand, go with the problem or challenge that is already there. There is always a problem or challenge. It’s just a question if their problem lines up with your solution.
That’s what guides do. They find solutions to problems.
Bonus Marketing Idea – What is The One Question You’re Not Asking?
This is from another pre-internet marketing legend, Eugene Schwartz.
If you can find his out of print book, “Breakthrough Advertising,” it will set you back several hundred dollars, and worth every penny.
You’ve done your research. You understand your customer’s problem. You’re in their skin. What’s missing? What question haven’t you asked? What’s the missing piece of the marketing puzzle?
What does your customer already know?
What does he know about the problem? What does she know about the possible solutions? What does he know about your solution? Does she even know she has a problem?
Why does it matter?
Because that determines the conversation that is going on in your customer’s mind. A prospect that doesn’t know he has a problem has a different internal dialogue than one that understands her problem, and knows the options.
If your message is too general for the solution ready prospect, they’ll walk. They can’t be bored with information they already know. If your message is too focused on the product, they’ll walk. They don’t want the product shoved down their throat.
I don’t want to go all pycho Schwartz on your ass, but this is important, and is a big part of getting heard in a noisy, distracted, and skeptical world.
I’m not going to lie.
Having the right message for the right problem at the right awareness level delivered via the right medium is hard. There are 5 awareness levels and that means, literally, five messages for one product.+
There’s no easy answer, but there’s kind of an easy fix.
Being that you’re a small business, and not the trusted advisor, yet, start with the problem, and then adapt. You will, over time, develop your case for being the trusted advisor.
The important thing here is that you recognize that marketing is part science, part art, and all too human.
Best,
Mike
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