A lot of people get frustrated with marketing. They feel like it doesn’t work. But the truth is, marketing does work. If it didn’t work you wouldn’t get the same emails marketing the same thing over and over again. If it didn’t work you wouldn’t keep seeing advertisements on TV shows or billboards. But, you want it to work for you and your business, right? If so, you need to do your homework.
* Do Your Research – Before spending any time or money marketing anything to anyone, you should do your research regarding the method that you want to use. If you don’t know what you’re doing and you’re trying to recreate the wheel, you’ll make it harder than it is, and waste time and money.
* Know Your Audience – The first thing you should do is research your audience. Know who they are, what they want, what their fears are and what keeps them up at night. Understand their pain points and which ones you can solve with your products and or services.
* Understand Your Competition – For some people, the idea of learning more about their competitors scares them. It makes them think they have nothing to offer. But in truth, the more you know about them the better you can serve your audience.
* Find the Right Keywords – It is tempting to go right for the obvious keywords, but instead use those obvious words as the starting point to find better keywords. You want to use keywords that have low competition but are being searched for in large numbers. These keywords will work better than the main word. For example, instead of using “car insurance” why not use “Geico”. They’re looking for car insurance and will be in your audience.
* Know Your Strengths – Some people are great at writing ad copy, while others are good at writing blog posts. They’re not the same thing. Sure, a good blogger uses copywriting practices within their posts, but it’s still very different. When you need copywriting, consider hiring someone if this isn’t your expertise.
* Know Your Weaknesses – Like strengths, weaknesses can also identify ways in which you can make marketing work for you. If one of your weaknesses is hating to sell to people, you can set up a lot of automation so that you don’t have to do it directly.
* Choose Your Objectives – Before you do any marketing, know what you want the results to be. Do you want them to subscribe, like, respond or buy? It shouldn’t always be buy either. Sometimes you’re just trying to spread awareness, but you still want a measurable call to action to help you with analytics.
* Know the Four P’s – This is product, price, promotion, and place. You have to offer a product your audience wants, at a price they’re happy to pay while letting people know it’s there, and making it easy for them to get.
Your marketing will work for you if you take the time to learn how to do it correctly. You need to know your audience, understand your own skills, and then do what you can to create amazing products that they want and tell them about those products.