CHAPTER 4
WHAT IS MARKETING?

Before coming up with a marketing strategy, you need to understand what makes great marketing. Let's start by defining what marketing is not. Great marketing is not sleazy, pushy, boring or disengaging.

Great marketing is engaging, educational and sometimes even entertaining.

The purpose of marketing is to attract more customers to your business, keep them coming back for more and get them to recommend you to their family and friends.

Great marketing is engaging, educational and sometimes even entertaining.

Marketing is very much like dating. When you meet a prospective partner for the first time, you don't generally expect them to sleep with you on your first date. The dating game may have changed slightly with the birth of dating apps, but in 'old-school' dating courting came first. You might go for a coffee to get to know each other and if that goes well you meet for dinner, then maybe a few more low-key dates before you 'convert'. You make an effort to build trust, which may eventually lead to a 'sale' if you 'get lucky'.

Marketing works the same way. The purpose of marketing is to help you attract the right people to your business so you can build trust by 'courting' them and sweeping them off their feet. Once your prospects trust you, they will choose you to do business with.

Social media is a brilliant way to meet prospects, nurture them to create familiarity, gain authority and build trust. Your 'dating game' starts with publishing great content for new prospects to discover, like and engage with. You might then move to direct messaging, a phone call, a meeting or any other touchpoint that moves the prospect closer to a sale.

Some people are very quick at making buying decisions, while others take a lot more courting. That's why it's so important for your business to have systems in place that capture all types of prospects instead of only going for the low-hanging fruit-that is, the easy sale. I'll walk you through how to create a marketing system-the Online Eco-System-in chapter 5.

One more important thing to consider is that if you're attracting the 'wrong' people-those who are not a great fit for your business-they may never 'convert'. Attracting the wrong market is one of the biggest challenges businesses face. In chapter 6 I'll introduce you to the Brand Alchemy MethodTM, which will help you position your business to attract the right audience.

The four types of marketing

There are four types of marketing businesses commonly use. The first three are the least effective ones for a small business.

The fourth type is the one I recommend you focus on and embrace as your overarching marketing approach.

If you are currently using any of the first three types, don't worry; it's very easy to adjust your course. This is why you are here: to improve on all of your marketing so you can get a better return from your social media efforts and ultimately fulfil your mission.

Let's briefly look at the four approaches so you can avoid the ones that are not the most effective for you.

Mass marketing

Mass marketing is one of the oldest and most well-known types of marketing. It's when a business broadcasts its marketing messaging to everyone without segmenting its market into different audiences. The challenge with this approach is that when you broadcast your message to 'everyone', you spend a lot of money with very little return. This approach works for big marketing budgets and awareness campaigns.

It's a lot more effective to tailor your campaigns to each market segment. This way your audience will feel understood and can connect with your message. The more specific and tailored your marketing, the more likely your potential customers are to pay attention to your business.

It's also cheaper to run niche-market vs mass-market campaigns. I know it can be very tempting to want to reach 'everybody'. And it can be scary to 'leave out' people by focusing on micro-markets; however, you will get a much higher return on your investment by doing this.

In our marketing mentoring programs at Basic Bananas, we see a lot of amazing examples of businesses going from a mass-marketing approach to taking the steps to be more niche. The results always speak for themselves.

For example, a chiropractor who went from being a generalist and targeting 'everybody' in his marketing communication decided to specialise in high-performance individuals. He's never looked back. He even got called to work with Tony Robbins, all because he had the courage to specialise and become known in this space.

Another example is a gym owner who went from marketing to anyone who wanted to get fit to turning his garage gym into a 'surfers' gym'. Before his change of focus, competition was incredibly fierce with fitness studios at every corner, some of which had much bigger marketing budgets than he did. Being an avid surfer and as the gym was located near surf breaks, his new niche was perfect! Now his surfers' gym focuses on helping surfers get fit to perform better in the ocean. The move from mass to niche marketing allows him to use the right channels to attract surfers.

Instead of doing mass-marketing campaigns, focus on micro-markets. Social media is a brilliant tool for this, and you'll do better with a specific message. (I look at how to truly understand your audiences and their emotional triggers in chapter 5.)

Hope marketing

'If you build it, they will come' is a common misconception that doesn't really apply to marketing. You'll see this type of marketing in action when a business owner buys a shopfront or invests in a fancy website and thinks people will flock to their business in droves. Unfortunately, this often doesn't happen.

In order to grow your business, you must be proactive and invest in building a marketing machine that attracts customers.

I'm sure you already have a never-ending to-do list and marketing is often pushed to the end of that list, or to the next day, and then the next, and so on. The reason for this is because most business owners just don't know how to go about marketing or where to even start. Throughout this book I will show you how to prioritise your marketing and help you focus on strategies that work.

Make marketing a priority.

Block out a few hours in your diary each week to focus on your marketing activities. Make marketing a priority.

Hunting vs farming

Another very common type of marketing is 'hunting'. I'm not only against this approach because I'm vegetarian but also because it's not sustainable for a business long term. In this approach, business owners go hunting for customers when they're starving because there aren't enough customers coming through the door. Hunting often includes activities such as cold calling, searching for the next customer all over the place and trying to convince people to buy from them so the business can make it through the next season. When they stop hunting, the customer flow stops too. This approach is exhausting, stressful and no fun at all.

Instead of hunting, focus on 'farming', or relationship-based marketing, which is not only the most sustainable option, but also the most effective one. Social media marketing helps you to move away from 'hunting' and instead plant seeds to harvest for a long time to come.

Relationship-based marketing

Make relationship-based marketing, or 'farming', your overarching approach to growing your business.

Focus your marketing efforts on nurturing your prospects so they choose you over everyone else when they are ready to buy. With this approach, rather than only going for the low-hanging fruit-that is, prospects who are ready to buy-you invest in nurturing prospects who need a little bit more time to make a purchasing decision.

You do this by courting your prospects, sharing great content and winning over your connections. With this approach you'll not only build trust, but create loyal followers and fans who will shout your business name from the rooftop.

This approach may take a bit longer to gain traction; however, if you commit and persist, you'll soon have a constant flow of customers coming through the door without having to go hunting when times are tough.

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Social media is a fabulous way to farm, nurture, build relationships and create an audience of interested people who will eventually become happy customers.

As mentioned earlier, most businesses have a very scattered approach to business growth. The Online Eco-System, which is the topic of chapter 5, will help you put your 'farming' approach into a neat system so that all the cogs are working hand in hand. Your social media channels are one very important cog in your marketing system.

Activities

• Block out time in your diary to focus on marketing activities every week. Even just one or two hours of pure focus every Monday morning will make a big...