10 Takeaways on How to be a Better Marketer
Whether you’re looking to break into the industry, move up the corporate ladder, or have decided to branch off on your own, its always important to know how to market yourself. Marketing is the essential piece that will help you get noticed and prove your worth.
In our recent eBook, A Pretty Dang Good Marketing Guide for Freelancers, we broke down the ‘marketing process’ into four distinct stages:
- Research/Refinement – Using data and information to know your market and your brand better.
- Planning – Creating a framework for the tactics, messages and mediums you will use to reach your audience.
- Execution – Carrying out your plan in a swift, merciless, take-no-prisoners sort of way.
- Monitoring – Minding the numbers to know if your marketing is working.
While the book may have been targeted toward freelancers, the same principles can be applied to anyone looking to move up in the business world.
Here are our top takeaways on how to be a better marketer!
Know yourself – Take a look in the mirror and ask yourself who you are and what you stand for. Not as a person in general, but as a business man or woman. Why should executives be excited to work with you? What do you bring to the table that no one else does? Don’t be concerned about being the fastest, or the cheapest, but the best of the best.
Know your customers – The customers you target are human beings, just like yourself. Take a page from your Facebook stalking days and get to know your customers more. Who is your target market? Where do they live? And what are their goals and objectives? These types of questions will help you better understand what they want and how you should market to them.
Create Personas – Once you’ve nailed down the type of customers you think you should be targeting, create their personas. Just like the imaginary friend you had growing up, give them a name, back story and personality. These personas will help you think of better targeted content, what marketing channels to use and how to approach problems.
You can research on a budget – There are plenty of free/cheap tools you can take advantage of online that will help you on your quest without breaking the bank. You can also use real life relationships, networking events and meetups to gauge demand and interest.
Branding is important – Branding is creating an identity for yourself or your business. This helps define your marketing. When creating your brand try following the three ‘C’s’: Creativity, Catchiness and Consistency.
Create great marketable assets – You may be able to talk a big game, however, at some point your going to need to prove it. Show off your expertise by creating marketable assets like a website and portfolio. These types of channels will allow potential clients to find you naturally and give you the opportunity to present your best work the way you want to.
SEO is a must – If you WANT to be found online, you have to earn it. Learning the basics of search engine optimization and properly executing it throughout all your online assets is the first step.
Focus on content marketing – While SEO is nice, you shouldn’t be focusing solely on keywords and links, but on creating a variety of content that attracts attention. Whether its through blogging, videos, social media, podcasts or all of the above, great content will find users if its promoted correctly and bring in more quality leads.
Take your marketing offline – Don’t hide behind your computer screen. There are plenty of ways of attracting customers outside of a Google search or blog post. It may be scary, but try picking up the phone or attending a networking event or try selling yourself/business with tangible assets like promotional products or mailers.
Create a marketing plan – Marketing is more than just throwing random things at the wall to see what sticks. It should be a combination of everything listed above, laid out strategically to optimize success.
All of the takeaways listed above and more can be found in A Pretty Dang Good Marketing Guide for Freelancers. You can download our eBook for FREE right here. Enjoy!
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