People needs to be the focus of you business, whether you are marketing your business, making a sale, or promoting your brand. After all, it's people who buy from you (not the search engines) and nothing can predict when people are ready to buy. One thing that is predictable is everyone wants, and there are three things that everyone wants:
- Access to great insight
- Access to great people
- Recognition
These three things come before your own products and services, so it's crucial to focus on people and their desires when promoting and marketing your business. How do you do that? How do you focus on people while building and growing your business? Here are a few concepts and techniques to try:
Solve Their Problems - We've discussed in previous blog posts the importance of addressing customer pain points and of providing information that helps solve their problems and make a sound buying decision. Now, consider another reason why this is important: solving their small problems for free leads to them needing you to solve their bigger problems. The point here is to provide value, and to show that you are valuable to people. If you can successfully solve their small problems, whether that's through a great blog post, webinar, discussion etc., then you've solidified your value and proven that you are capable of solving the bigger problems.
Freebies! - There are still successful marketing techniques, such as trade shows, where content isn't all that easy to give away. Sure, you can maybe give away a book, but no one wants a hard copy of a white paper or a slideshow. Therefore, freebies such Therefore, freebies such as stress balls (such as those found at this link: http://www.qualitylogoproducts.com/ball-stress.htm), pens, shirts, Frisbees etc. are still worthwhile tokens to promote your business while representing your brand.. A lot of people may just want the free stuff and may not care about your company, but them taking and using your free stuff gives you company visibility. Also, freebies are a great stepping stone toward giving people the three things they want.
Remove Your Marketing Messages - The point of marketing is hook people, to say the right thing at the right time to get their interest and to them to buy right then and there. However, this treats people like they are fish, like they need the thinking to be done for them, and this is a bad way to treat your audience and your potential customers. Instead, use content to build relationships, to lift up your audience and your potential customers, and to shine the light on them instead of yourself. Besides, there are already too many marketing messages out there. People are tuning them out and finding ways to stop the overload. Help stop the overload by giving people what they need, instead of disguising what you need as something they need.
Give a Gift - Gifts are what makes you valuable to people (true gifts, not a free whitepaper or tip sheet in exchange for lead generation info, but an actual gift). True gifts show appreciation and build trust, and do that without the expectation of getting something in return. By giving the people what they want, you'll eventually get what you want in return. For example, instead of asking an expert in your industry to write a blog post for you, or to put in a good word about your company, give something to them such as a review of their latest book or an interview with them on your own blog. This way, you are giving the expert something they need, and they are helping you in return with the extra publicity.
