Mount Marketing seems such a big thing to climb, it leaves us feeling overwhelmed at times. The answer is: splitting this big thing Marketing into little bite-size pieces. More specifically let’s just do one leg after the other in your own pace. You won’t even notice you’re climbing up a mountain. Each leg is fun and easy to do and will take you right to the top.

Here are some bite size activities that help you to stay on top with your day to day marketing they may seem basic and you probably have done them a few times before. A lot of marketing activities have to be done regularly. Like a routine check up. Choose one activity per day and try to not spend more than 30 minutes on each task for a start. 

Share your blogpost on social media (or show your product on social media)

Talk about your new blogpost, product or service on the social media channels that you are using to grow your business. Share them on Instagram. You can post a photo on your grid and talk about your post in your caption. Add the link to your bio. Talk about your blogpost in stories or use the swipe up if you have it. Tweet about your blogpost on twitter. Tweet again, nobody saw the first tweet.  Share wherever you think is a good space for it. Don’t forget to pin your cover/ title to your blogpost board (or the one you prefer) on Pinterest.

Share quality content 

But remember more is not better. Just share what you really think is high  quality and entertaining or educational for your people. I would  suggest time limit for this task of 10 minutes. We all now what happens if we get lost in stories or tweets….

Self marketing- Love yourself!

What has self love got to do with my daily marketing I hear you ask. The answer is easy. How do you want to tell people you are doing a great job if you don’t believe it yourself. Truth is that believing in yourself is often lifelong project with ups and downs. But therefore it is even more essential to continuously practice self love.  Treat yourself to a daily amount of self esteem booster and I promise it will bear fruits. Think of how you wish to feel and write a list of things that are holding you back.

Try to carve some time for the things that make you feel good even in busy times. A 10 minute meditation or a morning run. I know we are busy ALL THE TIME but there’s always space for self love exercise. Journal and jot down 10 things you love about yourself, 10 skills you have developed during the years, what is your superpower? No limits just write it down and keep it for the dark days when your self esteem needs a little boost.

Create your elevator pitch

Always be prepared that you might meet THE person you always wanted to work with. The so called elevator pitch means you only have a very short time to describe an idea, your service or product. Usually 20-60 seconds. It is like a mini pitch. Try to work out the core points of your work or project and think why you are the one to work with.

You only have time for a few sentences. So whenever you have a 5-10 minutes gap in between meetings, school runs or commutes think of a few good reasons why it should be you!

Bio check up

Now this check up should not take you longer than 15 minutes. But like the elevator pitch we only have a few seconds to grab peoples attention. They visit your bio because they are interested in you. Give them a reason to follow you and build up a connection. Tell them how you can help them but don’t forget to give them a little information about yourself. 

This isn’t work you do and then you’re done, regularly check if all information in your bio are up to date.

Signatur check up

Use your signature not just for your name but also as a little additional marketing plattform.Are all your social media connections listed? Tell them in just a few words what to expect. Do you have a subline or quote you use that people subconsciously connect with you? Why not using it in your bio as well? Do you have an eye catching logo that you can include? Promote your latest work or blog post with a link in your bio. Use this space as your additional information platform. 

Create consistent header 

Take look at all the material online and off-line that shows your  logo, quote, headlines and sublines, colours, fonts or other messages. Do they all match together? Are they consistent? Is there a golden thread that runs trough?

Think of your core message and what you want to stand for or look like. Then start creating a matching look for your brand for each channel. You can additionally create a journal or style guide and document the look of your brand. 

Feel free to create a list of the little things that can be dine ink less than 30 minutes. You can then update and pick out an activity that needs a fresh up at any time.

Talk to you soon, Gila

Der Beitrag DAILY MARKETING FOR SMALL BUSINESSES erschien zuerst auf Social Hut Cornwall.

„Marketing is not a battle, and it’s not a war or even a contest. Marketing is the generous act of helping someone solve a problem. Their problem. It is a chance to serve“ Seth Godin

Seth Godin also says, being discovered is the last part not the first. True! So let’s start with the first part. I often talk to clients about their wrong assumption that once their business is set up or their shop is open people will walk in just like that. The truth is: Those times are over. Especially in the online world. The internet gives us a lot of opportunities but it is also a huge media playground where let’s face it, everyone is talking about themselves and it is rarely about your business or you!

Marketing today is so different from the past profit-oriented short-term thinking tactics. You want to understand what is happening in your customer’s life. You have an understanding of how you can help your customers live the life they are dreaming of. How you can connect and build a relationship of trust. Your focus lies on engagement with your people. Did you know that people need about five to seven contact points before they are ready to buy from you? Yep, I know! You want a plan. But trust me you’ll get there!

Your Situation

A snapshot of where you and your business are today. In the marketing world, people often talk about a situation analysis. Write down an overview of your situation today. Describe your product or service that you are offering. Try to be as detailed as possible. Include key figures like pricing, monthly costs, production costs, important dates that might have an impact on your business.

Think of why you want to sell the products or offer a service. What makes you special? What drives you? Why do you get up in the morning and do what you do? What do you love about it? Your purpose builds the basis for all future decisions you might have to make. Knowing your purpose helps you to identify your places to shout: If you already run your business for a while try to incorporate your learnings. What is working, what isn’t? Can you point out why? Jot it all down. The more you know about your situation the better you are prepared.

Audience

The second step is all about your audience, your clients, or customers: Your dream people! The more you know about your dream people the better. Now If I say, the more you know, let’s not spend too much time on findings like where they live, married or not, how many children, income and so on. I believe today it is far more important to concentrate on:

• What do they believe in?
• What are their values?
• The question that YOU have an answer for
• What kind of problem do they have that you can help them with? 
• Know what they’re struggling with
• The favourite tools they like to use online and for communication
• tbc…

Try to gather together all information and insights you have about your dream people. Use what you already have from sales, emails, feedbacks, or other contacts. If you feel you have too little information to use why not make your own little survey? Ask your people through an online survey or on social media. If you are a shop owner talk to your customer in real life. Try to find an answer to the following questions: Who are your people? This is the part where you may well include some demographic data (that means where they live, age, gender, and so on) but as I mentioned earlier try to not overthink this. It might be that you end up having more than one group of people. That is absolutely fine.

Your goals

Write down a list of your goals and add a method to measure them! You can divide them into qualitative and quantitive if you feel confident and like a real pro. Qualitative goals are the ones like Increase engagement, make your people happy or increase your relevance and visibility.  Quantitative is all about the money and mostly measurable in figures. Example: I want to increase my sales in the first three months this year by x percent.

No matter what goals you write down your list make sure they are as measurable as possible. Realistic for you (if you are unsure go back to your situation overview and check if your goals first your situation). Finally, add timing to your goals. This is an important point because it is not sufficient enough to just have them there for „one day“. That would be a dream and not a goal. A timeline is inevitable if we want to achieve our goals.

Develop your message

Where are your people and how do you want to communicate with them, what is your message? While creating your message think back about your audience. Remember who they are, where they are and what their problem is that you can help them with. A few guidelines that help you to write down your message are: Try not to communicate more than three keypoints. That’s usually enough to start with.

Keep it simple. The simple things are the ones that people remember. Try to be as clear and precise with your working as possible. It helps people to understand what you want. Be emotional and authentic. Tell stories. People easily remember a good story. You might also add statistics and figures you science rocket!

Channels

Well done, you are almost there. Finally you have worked yourself through all the above stages and now we are getting to the final point that completes your plan. We know where we are with our product or service, we know what it’s/our purpose is, we know to whom we are offering our product or service, how we are going to tell it, and now the last question is:

WHERE are you going to publish?

To answer this question think back to where your audience likes to hang around when they are looking for the service you can give them. (In Marketingland this is also often called outreach strategy.) Your content will most likely be on your website or in your shop but where else can you publish it?  What resources do they use? (If you are unsure at this point, work on your audience again.)

Where are the places or platforms other than your website where they would typically search for you? Is it a video you would like to publish, then probably Youtube would be an option? Or if you want to publish a professional report LinkedIn or SlideShare works best for it. Or maybe you prefer Instagram and gathered a Fanclub there? Where are the places or platforms other than your website where they would typically search for you?

Think of more than just one place to promote your offer.  If you publish a blog post on your website for example make sure to promote it in other places. Spread your message to the widest audience possible. Creating messages and content that are found, seen, heard, engaging, and loved by your people is not witchcraft or magic nor do you have to be a marketing rocket! It can be done no matter how big your budget is or how big your business might be. It is all about sending YOUR message and connect with your people! 

But this takes a lot of trial and error even for people who have been in this business for decades. Keep going and try! The more you try, the better you will understand what works for you and what doesn’t. Those are very useful insights that you can implement in your future plans. If you are unsure whether a plan is the right thing for you or not then you might get your answer here.

Talk to you soon

Gila x

Let’s get connected if you like and be part of a creative community

Der Beitrag 5 EASY STEPS TO CREATE A MARKETING PLAN erschien zuerst auf Social Hut Cornwall.

Running your own business means you’re an expert in what you do!

If you’re a graphic designer you’re an expert in creating images and texts. No one would think you’re an expert for marketing as well. However being smart with your marketing is important for the success of your business and even more if you don’t have a six digit budget to spend. But at the end of the day Marketing is nothing else than shouting out to your people that you’ve got something they need!

Empower yourself with developing a marketing plan that is made for YOU and the needs of your business rather than a general marketing one-size-fits-all strategy. 

This is the first part of a series I can’t wait to write for you. A series of blog posts looking at „easy- to-use-marketing“ that enables you to make a plan for your business at any time without having a degree in marketing or decades of experience in global companies as a marketing expert.

But how do I know I need a marketing plan at all?

That is a perfect question to dive into easy marketing. Personally I believe the assumption that marketing is all about change. In other words. If you are happy with your performance, if your boss is happy with your performance, if your bank account is happy with your performance, if you are happy with your clients performance,… congratulations, maybe you unknowingly have a good marketing plan therefore are doing a brilliant job. 

As marketing guru Seth Godin says: „Marketing is the act of make change happen. Making is insufficient. You haven’t made an impact until you’ve changed someone.“

In my January Newsletter I was actually talking about change. But I think this story fits here perfectly too:

…“One day a guy with a music school showed up and asked for „help“ with marketing. He struggled with a new website he wanted to create. There was just no way he could make himself deal with it. He’d rather go and play the guitar. I asked him why he wanted a new website. His answer was: Because some people told me it’s old-fashioned. The truth is he is always fully booked, he has hardly any spare time because of gigs and other music projects that make him happy (and pays the bills), people love him, he is well known in the whole region and everyone wants to work with him. Guess what my advice was. Well maybe some people think that was bad marketing but I refused to work with him. He was HAPPY! He didn’t want to change anything. People wanted him to change something. That’s not the kind of motivation we need if you ask me.”

You might need a marketing plan if…

You feel you are not busy enough in a satisfying way

General boredom

You find it difficult to create new products

Ideas are not spreading anymore

Your work is frustrating you

Your boss is frustrated with your work

Your team is not performing the way it could

Your work is not fulfilling you

Clients are not achieving what you’d hoped

People are not buying your products

Nobody is signing in your e-courses

Your community seems like in a sleeping beauty sleep

Clients don’t book into consultation appointments

Screen time is sky rocketing and frustrating

Take your time to reflect on your business or projects and analyze where you are and how you feel about it. What is working and what needs improvement?

If you agree with one of the above indicators a marketing plan could be helpful for you however don’t stress yourself! Some people I know rebel against all kinds of structures hidden in a plan. So be patient with yourself.

Start step by step at your own pace. And if you need an easy guide on how to create your plan this might be helpful.

Talk to you soon

Gila x

Der Beitrag SIGNS YOU NEED A MARKETING PLAN erschien zuerst auf Social Hut Cornwall.