Suffering from Information Marketing Overload
Suffering from Information Marketing Overload
TMI really is Too Much Information sometimes. In a world overflowing with more information we could possibly process let alone implement, it makes me wonder – do I really need to know all of this in order to be successful? How much information does my prospect base need to know as well? When is enough, enough – or too much information – way too much information?
I’ve always taken a different approach to my business and focused on developing meaningful relationships with my corporate clients as well as my solo-prenuer clientele as well. In addition, there are a variety of ways to reach out and touch your customer base and make a very decent living doing so, but not all methods of marketing are applicable to all business or, dare I say, even necessary. That’s right. You do need a “marketing mix” of communication going out to your target market; however, utilizing three or four strategies and tactics may be all you need to be successful – using fewer resources and experiencing less stress in the process.
That’s right, I want to offer a simpler approach to marketing and growing your business that will be easier for you to implement, meet with success, and provide you with a generous income.
1. Focus on your strengths. According to Marcus Buckingham, who authored, Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance discusses the power of focusing on your strengths rather than forcing yourself to be more “balanced” in your skill sets? What a great lesson to teach our children as well. How boring would live be if we all had similar capabilities. Experts are sought after and more highly paid then “generalists,” so focus on your strengths and implement them.
2. Do what you like to do and outsource the efforts that are necessary to reach out and touch your target market. Let’s face it, there are things we know that we should do, but will never do. I hate bookkeeping, but know that it’s necessary to run my business effectively. I enjoy writing, but don’t want to layout my e-zine. Could I learn to do it, sure. There are other things that generate more revenues for my business that I need to devote my time to – so do you. Although many functions are necessary in our business, many are not enjoyable, so we procrastinate, that leads to stress, etc. Write lists of what these activities are that need to be done and the deadlines you’d like someone to adhere to and outsource this function to a virtual assistant.
3. Review the laundry list of options and choose your top three you know you can and will commit to and implement. We will do what we like to do and excel at – its human nature and its ok. I enjoy speaking at least monthly to a live audience and on-line, attending key networking events, writing articles, books and products to service my solo-preneur customer base and delivering my services to my clients because they are paying me to provide the goods. The rest of the tasks needed to run my business I have placed in the reliable hands of my Client Relationship Manager, Misty Allen, who manages my virtual team.
4. Authentically provide value without saying it! If you truly are providing valuable information to your prospects and clients, me think though doust protest too much, if you need to continually TELL them how much value you are providing. If you are being authentic and offering great advice, trust me, your prospects and clients will feel and understand that from you.
5. Identify the best opportunities to connect in-person with your target market. Listen nobody loves working from the comfort of my home office more than me, but there is no replacement to the face-to-face personal connection with our prospects and clients that can only be achieved when we see touch and talk to them in person. Look for networking opportunities at conferences, conventions, workshops and meetings where you can see and be seen. Oftentimes, deals are done in-person, far more often than on-line or on the phone, regardless of how well connected you are. Make it appoint to see a client if you’re visiting in their neck of the woods, or invite them out do dinner if they’re visiting your location. Remember, it’s all about the relationship – we buy from people we know, like and trust.
6. Know how to reach them virtually as well. Although there is nothing better than that personal connection, you need to uncover ways to reach out to your prospective and client markets in a virtual way or on paper through snail mail as well. We send out a weekly e-zine to our readership that keeps them informed of what we have on store and our new offerings – some free, some fee based, a relevant article (like this one), permission to reprint it with the use of my byline, and upcoming events they may be interested in participating. 80% of our e-zine is pure value and content, which reinforces the – know, like trust factor our prospects have come to expect from us. What are your clients expecting of you and are you delivering it to them?
7. Walk your talk and demonstrate real value instead of “telling” everyone about the value you bring. “Me think though douse protest too much!” If it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, quacks like a duck – it’s a duck. If you believe you are providing value, you don’t need to continually tell people you do. They know it inherently and you demonstrate it by providing value and allowing them to come to their own conclusions about you and whether or not what you’re making available to them does in fact have real meaning and value to them.
8. Model Your Business from Those Who Have Been There, Done That. Find mentors whose work you admire and study them and what they do. I don’t mean copy or repeat what they’re doing, but you want to be surrounded with like-minded people who share your vision of success and want to share their expertise and knowledge as you do. Check out Tony Robbins theory of modeling for more information on how you can apply this concept to your business.
9. Stay focused on the end result knowing there are necessary steps needed to be taken along the way. The process is where the learning, work and fun take place. Keep focused on your end game and take the steps that will get you there over time. Move forward, 90% is good enough, put one foot in front of the other and you’ll be on your way to reaching that goal. Try not to be discouraged, but inspired by challenges you face and look for the opportunity in the midst of crisis.
10. Commit to your plan and be consistent. Marketing is about being visible in a consistent way and repeating that message over time. Design a plan that will be fun and easy for you to implement. Focus on what you love to do, delegate the rest, and keep on keepin’ on. Take your calendar out and determine when things need to be completed by (or what their drop date is) and work backwards from those deadlines. Keep you image consistent both on-line, off-line and in person and stay connected and in touch with your prospects physically (face-to-face), tangibly (concrete sense in the form of direct mail, marketing pieces, etc.), and electronically (e-zines, tele-classes and web casts).
Remember marketing is about reach and frequency. Our goal is to do it consistently in the way we most enjoy reaching out and being recognized for our own unique offerings by our ideal target market(s).
Suffering from Information Marketing Overload - To learn more about this author, visit Nancy Michaels's Website.
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Maybe I’m being too much of a contrarian, but honestly, I’m sick to death of information marketers these days. Aren’t you? Here’s the other kicker, they all claim to be totally “authentic” when they reek of in-authenticity and heavy duty sales pitches – both on and off-line.
TMI really is Too Much Information sometimes. In a world overflowing with more information we could possibly process let alone implement, it makes me wonder – do I really need to know all of this in order to be successful? How much information does my prospect base need to know as well? When is enough, enough – or too much information – way too much information?
I’ve always taken a different approach to my business and focused on developing meaningful relationships with my corporate clients as well as my solo-prenuer clientele as well. In addition, there are a variety of ways to reach out and touch your customer base and make a very decent living doing so, but not all methods of marketing are applicable to all business or, dare I say, even necessary. That’s right. You do need a “marketing mix” of communication going out to your target market; however, utilizing three or four strategies and tactics may be all you need to be successful – using fewer resources and experiencing less stress in the process.
That’s right, I want to offer a simpler approach to marketing and growing your business that will be easier for you to implement, meet with success, and provide you with a generous income.
1. Focus on your strengths. According to Marcus Buckingham, who authored, Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance discusses the power of focusing on your strengths rather than forcing yourself to be more “balanced” in your skill sets? What a great lesson to teach our children as well. How boring would live be if we all had similar capabilities. Experts are sought after and more highly paid then “generalists,” so focus on your strengths and implement them.
2. Do what you like to do and outsource the efforts that are necessary to reach out and touch your target market. Let’s face it, there are things we know that we should do, but will never do. I hate bookkeeping, but know that it’s necessary to run my business effectively. I enjoy writing, but don’t want to layout my e-zine. Could I learn to do it, sure. There are other things that generate more revenues for my business that I need to devote my time to – so do you. Although many functions are necessary in our business, many are not enjoyable, so we procrastinate, that leads to stress, etc. Write lists of what these activities are that need to be done and the deadlines you’d like someone to adhere to and outsource this function to a virtual assistant.
3. Review the laundry list of options and choose your top three you know you can and will commit to and implement. We will do what we like to do and excel at – its human nature and its ok. I enjoy speaking at least monthly to a live audience and on-line, attending key networking events, writing articles, books and products to service my solo-preneur customer base and delivering my services to my clients because they are paying me to provide the goods. The rest of the tasks needed to run my business I have placed in the reliable hands of my Client Relationship Manager, Misty Allen, who manages my virtual team.
4. Authentically provide value without saying it! If you truly are providing valuable information to your prospects and clients, me think though doust protest too much, if you need to continually TELL them how much value you are providing. If you are being authentic and offering great advice, trust me, your prospects and clients will feel and understand that from you.
5. Identify the best opportunities to connect in-person with your target market. Listen nobody loves working from the comfort of my home office more than me, but there is no replacement to the face-to-face personal connection with our prospects and clients that can only be achieved when we see touch and talk to them in person. Look for networking opportunities at conferences, conventions, workshops and meetings where you can see and be seen. Oftentimes, deals are done in-person, far more often than on-line or on the phone, regardless of how well connected you are. Make it appoint to see a client if you’re visiting in their neck of the woods, or invite them out do dinner if they’re visiting your location. Remember, it’s all about the relationship – we buy from people we know, like and trust.
6. Know how to reach them virtually as well. Although there is nothing better than that personal connection, you need to uncover ways to reach out to your prospective and client markets in a virtual way or on paper through snail mail as well. We send out a weekly e-zine to our readership that keeps them informed of what we have on store and our new offerings – some free, some fee based, a relevant article (like this one), permission to reprint it with the use of my byline, and upcoming events they may be interested in participating. 80% of our e-zine is pure value and content, which reinforces the – know, like trust factor our prospects have come to expect from us. What are your clients expecting of you and are you delivering it to them?
7. Walk your talk and demonstrate real value instead of “telling” everyone about the value you bring. “Me think though douse protest too much!” If it looks like a duck, acts like a duck, quacks like a duck – it’s a duck. If you believe you are providing value, you don’t need to continually tell people you do. They know it inherently and you demonstrate it by providing value and allowing them to come to their own conclusions about you and whether or not what you’re making available to them does in fact have real meaning and value to them.
8. Model Your Business from Those Who Have Been There, Done That. Find mentors whose work you admire and study them and what they do. I don’t mean copy or repeat what they’re doing, but you want to be surrounded with like-minded people who share your vision of success and want to share their expertise and knowledge as you do. Check out Tony Robbins theory of modeling for more information on how you can apply this concept to your business.
9. Stay focused on the end result knowing there are necessary steps needed to be taken along the way. The process is where the learning, work and fun take place. Keep focused on your end game and take the steps that will get you there over time. Move forward, 90% is good enough, put one foot in front of the other and you’ll be on your way to reaching that goal. Try not to be discouraged, but inspired by challenges you face and look for the opportunity in the midst of crisis.
10. Commit to your plan and be consistent. Marketing is about being visible in a consistent way and repeating that message over time. Design a plan that will be fun and easy for you to implement. Focus on what you love to do, delegate the rest, and keep on keepin’ on. Take your calendar out and determine when things need to be completed by (or what their drop date is) and work backwards from those deadlines. Keep you image consistent both on-line, off-line and in person and stay connected and in touch with your prospects physically (face-to-face), tangibly (concrete sense in the form of direct mail, marketing pieces, etc.), and electronically (e-zines, tele-classes and web casts).
Remember marketing is about reach and frequency. Our goal is to do it consistently in the way we most enjoy reaching out and being recognized for our own unique offerings by our ideal target market(s).
Suffering from Information Marketing Overload - To learn more about this author, visit Nancy Michaels's Website.
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Anne BarrAnne Barr has over 26 years experience in sales and marketing, six years as a franchisee. She has assisted over 367 business owners and purchasers to achieve their goals in career change, transition and exit strategy. She holds the designation of Certified Franchise Executive from the International Franchise Association, Certified Business Intermediary from the International Business Brokers Association and Board Certified Broker from the Texas Association of Business Brokers. Anne is active in professional organizations, networking groups and volunteers for non-profit entities. As owner/operator of four successful businesses, Anne has proven people skills and enjoys helping clients find the right "fit" in business ownership. Visit www.FranchiseOpportunitySpecialist.com for more information about me and my company. - Visit Anne Barr's Website |
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