Your signature line (the sign off at the bottom of emails) can be used for loads of different purposes, the most common and boring being to tell people who you are! However, if you aren’t already you could use it to sell something or tell people what you’re up to that might benefit them!
If you have products then include a link and watch your sales soar.
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By Joe Gregory of ReThink Press
One of the big mistakes that so many people make in business, large or small (or even ‘micro’), is understanding the value of ‘Positioning’. It’s a simple marketing strategy that every business owner can and should adopt. It costs very little, or nothing really, as it’s about making some simple decisions.
Let me explain…
Positioning is the fancy term we apply to the concept of deciding how you want other people to think about your business. It’s part of the fabric of your branding but it’s even more than this. It will help you to target the right audience, with the right message.
When we engage with a company, their brand and their products or services, we always adopt a perception of what type of business they are and how we choose to think about them. Positioning factors would include things like; being seen as budget, good value, or even exclusive and ‘high-end’.
Other aspects might be how a business like to relate to its customers; is it friendly and relaxed, or more ‘professional’ and traditional in the way it presents itself?
The reason this is important is because it defines the type of customer that it attracts. For example; if I run a therapy service, am I aiming for a particular type of customer? This could be on the basis of age, gender, needs, interests, locality, etc.
These features really do make up your business personality. And yes, every business has some form of personality and your aim is to make yours as attractive as possible.
However, the real key in position is to be clear about the specific target audience you want to attract. It could be that you want to specialise in certain areas, for certain needs or with certain types of services. This is the very opposite of trying to present yourself as a generalist. Very few customers are every attracted to a business because they are ‘generalist’, whereas we much prefer to spend money with people who we believe match our needs specifically.
So here are a few questions to help you find your best Positioning:
1. How do we want people to perceive our value of service; top-end, budget, exclusive?
2. What type of customers are we looking for; by age, gender, need and other demographic?
3. Are we reflecting our best assets as part of our Positioning; and are we actively promoting these?
4. How can we improve and refine our Positioning to be more specific in our marketing?
And finally…
How will we know when we’ve got our Positioning right; will we test it and if so how?
With these questions as a simple place to start I’d recommend looking at other businesses that are in your space, perhaps your competition, and look to see if they have any clear Positioning. How do you, and other, describe their business personality and is it working for them?
By Nial Adams
of Make Marketing Work and PUSH Academy
Do you find days that you are flagging and uninterested in what you do?
Do you sometimes feel unmotivated and a struggle to get going?
Sometimes things happen in our everyday life that throws us off our path and we can lose confidence and let in self doubt.
What do you do when that happens?
You can curl up in a ball under the duvet and hibernate or you can get out there and kick a**!
Here are some ways to kick you up the behind and to help yourself!
Who inspires you? Who do you admire? If you know them get in touch as they will help to put you back on the correct path. If it is someone well known then read their blog, FB posts, book, website whatever to give you back your confidence and to remind yourself what you are doing in this world.
What music makes you happy? What music gets you up to dance – is it trance, rock and roll, techno, classical, Pharell Williams ‘Happy’, Play whatever music moves you whether it is the song, music, words or the singer – get up and boogie!
Is there are favourite cafe or restaurant that you love? Do you love the building or decoration or the people inside? Do you like to watch the world go by? Take yourself out for some me time and join the world.
What books do you like? It may be an entrepreneurial one like Richard Branson or Napoleon Hill ‘Think and Grow Rich’ or it may be a spiritual one ‘The Secret’ or a self help book about marketing by Dee Blick. Grab a book and a quiet corner or visit the library and lose yourself in a good book and be inspired.
Are you creative? Do you like to paint, draw, knit, sew, bake, sing – do what brings you joy.
Do you inspire yourself? When you are feeling unmotivated take a look at your journal and see what you have achieved. If you do not journal write down what you have accomplished with your business – you will surprise yourself.
What places lift you? Do you dream of far off countries or picture yourself on hot deserted beaches? Picture yourself there or print off pictures of your favourite place – it might be walking in the hills or moors searching for tors. It is a place that will feed your soul.
Watch a good movie.
Surround yourself with things that inspire and motivate you – pictures, flowers, aromatherapy oils,
Open up to feeding your spirit and watch your energy levels, motivation and inspiration soar!
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By Alison Brown
of Ali’s Therapy Academy
Listen to the audio version of this blog:
I was having dinner with friends recently and we got on to the conversation of focus for marketing (we’re all business owners) and we had some of the classic responses come up. Perhaps some of these will ring a bell for you when you consider the possibility of focusing on just one type of client for your upcoming promotional activity:
If you’re resonating with these comments then you are not alone – you are in fact among the majority of businesses.
BUT this is where you can step up your game, be different and make some big differences for your business.
My suggestion is that when you answer as above, then you are in a fear state. What do I mean by that? I mean that you are in a mindset that is fearful of possible negative outcomes and so you are not thinking as rationally as you would if you could step out of that fear feeling.
The funny thing is that you probably don’t even think that it is a fear response… surely it’s logical to supply a service to lots of clients? That way you get a bigger piece of the pie?
To a certain extent I agree with you, but this is not going to be useful to you when it comes to getting your message out and attracting lots of lovely new clients.
Consider this:
+ You’re getting married. Do you feel that you’d be drawn more to the person who’s website shows that they do photos of everything under the sun and has no main specialism or would you be attracted to the photographer who specialises in weddings and creating the best wedding photos, albums etc?
+ You’re wanting to lose weight and are looking for a personal trainer to help you. Do you think you’d choose the trainer that specialises in muscle building or maybe is a pretty general PT or would it in fact make much more sense to find someone who specialises in weight loss and has a stream of testimonials from happy clients who have achieved what you want to with this person.
It’s a total no brainer. Unless you already have a relationship with another provider, you are going to go with the ‘expert’ or ‘specialist’ every time because you know that they are the most likely to deliver the results that you are looking for.
Look at some of the bigger companies:
I could go on, and on! All of the companies above offer lots of different products but you’ll find that they have one thing that they are known for predominantly and this is what draws people in. Once you’re in the store or website you can see the other offerings and buy them if you want and you will also remember what else is on offer and be able to go back again later to get more when required.
Each of these businesses will attract a different type of person. You can get pizza from Carluccio’s and you can get pizza from Pizza Hut – both deliver the same item and are an eat-in restaurant, but they do it in different ways and the marketing for each is completely different, as is the experience in the restaurants.
Your customers are just the same. If you own a hotel with a golf club and spa then you will need to have different adverts in different places for each aspect of the business. For example:
And you can go even deeper:
Pamper days can be broken down and advertised in specific areas:
And so you see, this is just a small example of focused marketing and I’m sure you can agree that a specific advert, as above, would be much more effective, when placed in the right location, than a generic advert promoting ‘golf, golf breaks, spa days and more’ in a generic publication.
If you look hard enough at your business (this is when being the ‘Queen of Your Brand’ comes in) you will find ONE thing that you want to be know for and this should be at the forefront of all your promotions. It might well be an alien concept for you at this stage but it will be the making of your brand when you make a start with this.
Look at Microsoft, Adobe, Apple, Coke, Pampers…. they ALL do it! So why on earth would it not work for you too? These are companies that spend millions and billions in brand strategy and marketing and are at the top of the business food chain. You don’t have to spend the same money to learn from what is working for them and tweaking it to work for your business too.
‘Modelling’ like this applies in all aspects of life. If you want to be an olympic athelte then you need to think and act like one. And there’s no better way to do that than to find an athelete you want to be like and to copy what they do until you’re great like them too.
In business we have inspirational business people like Richard Branson, Anita Roddick, Coco Chanel, Oprah, Tony Robbins and many more – all of which you can read their books, listen to their audios, watch their videos and learn about how they live their lives and so ‘model’ (copy and incorporate into your life) them and their behaviours and by default become more like them along the way.
So as you would model people for your own development, you can model successful companies to achieve bigger and better things for your business.
Getting back to the focus part. There’s a great saying that ‘where the focus goes the energy flows’ and it is so very true. Whatever you focus on in your business, you will get more of. So if you’re focusing on attracting a real mishmash of customers because you have no focus, that’s what you’re going to get.
If you take a bold step and focus on the one type of client that you would love to work with every day then you will attract more of those clients.
I would ask you this: Why would you want to attract clients that you don’t really want, when you can attract the clients you dream of in a much more effective and fun way!?
With your sensible hat on you just wouldn’t, right?
Yet, when you have your fearful hat on, the panic kicks in and instead of focusing on the positive, you instead focus on the negative ‘OMG, what if I then get NO ONE!’ – which of course is nonsense, as you’ve already agreed above.
Do you know what’s EVEN BETTER about all this?
You don’t have to do anything drastic to test it out!
You can dip your toe in the water and see if it’s the temperature that makes for a good swim. Try it with the next advert that you do, or flier that you print.
Consider the following:
If you do the above and then, and here is the crux of it, distribute them WHERE YOUR CLIENT ACTUALLY IS (another huge benefit of being specific is that you know where to target), then as long as you have used wording and design that will be attractive to your Ideal Client and you’ve clearly told them what action steps to take, you will find that the people who you’re aiming at will get in touch.
This is just touching on this subject, but hopefully you get the idea and will start trying out being SPECIFIC and being FOCUSED in your own business and with your marketing.
Once you start you’ll kick yourself for not doing it sooner! : )
Let me know how you’re getting on and your thoughts on this below.
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By Sophie Jewry
of The Holistic Directory and The Brand Kitchen
The Holistic Journal 