LivingUndaunted

The New (and Old) Story on Marketing Your Business

By Maria E. Andreu

Marketing is marketing.  In many ways, it hasn’t changed in a hundred (or more!) years, despite what internet gurus and other marketing mavens tell you.

The main things you need to know about marketing are basic and never change.  The delivery format can change so much it’ll make your head spin.  Don’t confuse the two!  A little later in this article I’ll share with you some of the new marketing techniques that hold most promise for you in getting the word out about your business today.  Some of them will definitely be new to you.  But remember, these are simply tools. 

Before that, here’s a primer on marketing basics without which your marketing is not going anywhere.

Marketing, as I always like to say, is a conversation.  In order to have a conversation, you need to know with whom you want to converse.  It may sound basic, but you wouldn’t believe how many people I see get caught up on this step.  You do have to choose a target market.  Yes, you’re a talented, multi-faceted individual who can coach lots of people.  So am I.  I’m a spiritual, ritual-performing, small-business experienced mother of two who paints, is writing a book on female spirituality, does marketing for a certain little coach training company we all know and love and has recently taken up tango.  (Beat that!)  I know you’re just as fascinating.  However, in order to clearly and succinctly communicate to your target market, you have to first be able to find them, then effectively speak to them.  So decide who “they” are.

If marketing is a conversation, it starts, like all good conversations, with you LISTENING, to yourself, to your passions, to your skills and to the people you are thinking about serving. Listening is key because it’s much too easy to get caught up in what you think is a smart idea without any confirmation from your potential audience.  Don’t do that!  R&D early and often.  Whether it’s surveys, focus groups or old-fashioned conversations with 20 key influential voices in your target market, getting the pulse on what the market wants to buy is critical to providing services that sell.

Getting the marketing basics down is critical.  No amount of Flash on your website, video tutorials, fancy blogs or viral marketing campaigns will do the trick if your message is muddy or your unique selling proposition unclear.  Get clear!  Run your ideas past trusted colleagues, talk it through with your mentor coach and test, test, test. 

Only THEN should you check out some of the coolest ideas we’ve found in marketing recently. 

The hottest trends

1)      Using Flash.  Once considered very bad web form, the use of Flash is becoming increasingly popular and more affordable.  The key to getting good Flash is making sure it’s subtle and loads easily in all kinds of browsers.  An experienced web designer will be able to design a good Flash banner or other subtle element that will give pizzazz to your site without overpowering it.  Great uses include time-sensitive promotions, newly released products and any other information or service you want to highlight.  And be sure it’s coded so a plain html version loads for people without Flash-viewing capabilities.

2)      Attention-grabbers.  Yes, the debate will rage forever about whether these are annoying or they work (hint, most people who think they’re annoying are still captured by them).  For a fun new pop-up product which is subtle, eye-catching and about as effective as anything we’ve seen on the market so far, see http://instantattentionforcoaches.com

3)      Going viral.  Do you ever pass on those silly videos or (egads, worse yet!) those internet jokes?  If you’re like the overwhelming majority of people, the answer is “Yes, at least some of the time.”  It’s today’s equivalent of hollering to the guy in the next cubicle – we need to share laughter and anything else that’s a bit out of the ordinary.  Viral marketing works by giving people just such a thing to pass around, thereby spreading the word about what YOU do.  If you’ve heard of Burger King’s wild success with the subservient chicken campaign (a wacky site where there is a person in a chicken suit and you type commands that the “subservient chicken” then acts out) you know viral marketing is powerful.  So how do you harness the power of the internet to “spread a virus?”  First, observe and get creative.  How could you make your target market laugh or be touched or inspired?  What’s the “inside joke” you can share with your target market?  Write a little script and have a short movie put together, then send it to your list, your clients, your prospects, people you know, people who know people in your target market.  The success of these types of campaigns vs. their cost can be amazing.

4)      Blogs.  Despite all the buzz you hear around blogs, on a recent poll we did for our Powered Up Practice program, only 8% of you reported having a blog.  Yikes!  With a technology so easy to use, so great for getting good search engine ranking and so versatile, that’s just a crying shame.  Blogs can be amazing for having a quick, easily updated web presence and for keeping in touch with your prospects and clients.  You can start with a free one at Blogger.com or, if you’re ready for unlimited blogs and greater functionality (at a nominal cost) go to www.typepad.com 

These are some of the “trendiest” marketing ideas today.  Remember these are ways of delivering your message… they’ll only work if your core message is solid.  So, happy marketing and here’s to your success.

Maria

Intentions and Action

Recently, I found a list of intentions I’d written late last year.  At the top of the list:  become VP of Marketing and Communications for CV.  When I wrote it, there was no good reason to think that would come to pass, but upon finding this old list I realized it had happened within 2 months of my writing it down. 

The magic of the universe?  Yes and no.

Looking over that list, I realize that many of the 10 or so things I wrote as my intentions for 2005 have become reality.  Is it the miraculous and elusive act of putting things out into the ether that magically attracts them into our lives?  On my more woo-woo days, I think so.  Or is it the rational act of getting clear about one’s goals and keeping them front of mind, thus being more open to opportunity and clearer in one’s requests?  On my more logical and “thinking” days, that’s the explanation I give myself.  On days of balance, yin and yang, light and dark, I know the answer is both and neither.  Logic, magic and intention fuse into the creation that is my life which I both author and receive, a gift from a smiling universe.

We chose this issue to feature the act of intention and deliberate creation because for many of us it’s a time of “getting back to business” after relaxed days of summer.  As we shift gears into exploring our opportunities, our next steps, our desired outcomes, it helps to take a step back and look at the larger tapestry of our lives.  What is it we are looking to create?  What are we here to contribute? 

Setting intentions is merely the act of deciding and making that decision known, be it to our friends, our coaches and accountability partners or simply in a whispered dream to the attentive universe.  It is a statement of desired outcome. 

Living a life of deliberate intention can infuse your existence with purpose, color and breath in a way that few things can.  Rather than a mismatched collection of separate and random acts, a life lived with intention strings together all your actions and efforts into a cohesive whole that glows with meaning. 

So what is your intention for today?  What do you want to create?

What about this month?

What are your intentions for your business through the end of the year?  The next 365 days?  The next 5 years?

Taking a few moments to write the answers to those questions can radically alter how you experience the world.  Henriette Anne Klauser in her great book Write It Down, Make It Happen (see the end of this article for a collection of suggested resources around intention), tells the story, similar to my own, of her 12-year-old son finding a two-year-old list of intentions while cleaning his room (I hope next she writes the book letting us know how to get a 12-year-old to clean his room).  The list, long-forgotten, contained intentions for his young life that one by one had come true.  This and many anecdotes in her book reveal the enticing possibility: what if is as simple as asking for what you want?

Again, in this I have both spiritual and pragmatic (and pragmatically spiritual) views on the subject.  Too often have I been touched by the breeze of magic to believe there is a rational explanation for everything.  And yet, it’s about much more than writing down your intentions and going off to take a nap.  Intentions, in their gauzy essence full of hope and possibility, must be married with action plans and real effort to bring about results.  I love Amelia Earhart on this subject:

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.”

Amelia Earhart

Intention is that decision to act, the pointing of your effort in that one focused direction.  It’s where some of our modern “feel-good” intention work falls short.  Yes, it’s powerful to state your intentions.  Yes, manifesting is a force of the universe impossible to grasp with the limited faculty of reason.  And yet, you’ll find that with everyone that has achieved their intentions (including the inspirational authors who write about intentions), behind the big dream is also tenacity, focused endeavor and determination. 

I once heard a wonderful presenter say in a moment of levity, “The universe will give you about $2,000 in coaching fees a month if you decide to go with the attraction principle of marketing.  After that you need to put some elbow grease into it.”  Of course he was half kidding, since every successful person knows we often attract things without knowing exactly how.  And yet we are mistaken to only hope and pray and intend.  The other part of that equation is to listen with an open heart to what the universe says in response to your requests and then do those things, putting voice and action behind spirit.

I leave you with a quote that, besides its lyrical beauty, holds the key to all of your success, the marriage of intention and action.  As you take the time over the next few days to create your future, keep it often in your mind and spirit and let its wisdom suffuse  your being:

“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it."

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Be inspired! 

Maria

Write It Down, Make It Happen by Henriette Anne Klauser

The Power of Intention; Learning to Co-Create Your World Your Way by Wayne Dyer

Meditations for Manifesting by Wayne Dyer (audio CD)

Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting by Lynn Grabhorn