Warning! The Person Doing Your Marketing May Not Even Know How to Market Themselves!

As a business advisor I work with clients helping them gain visibility within their market. Without sounding too arrogant or bold I can safely say I have earned the right to do this. The primary reason is because the very strategies I teach my clients are the same tactics that have afforded me a great deal of visibility within my market. It is this visibility that sets me apart from my competition.

There is incredible power and profit that comes from visibility. The more visible you are to your market the more you will be the person a client calls when the need for your product or service arises. Hands down - visibility is a primary aspect of one’s marketing.

Unfortunately, many people either don’t know how to gain the visibility that sets them apart from their competition or they aren’t willing to put the time into creating it. Worse yet, they may have someone who is doing their marketing that really doesn’t know how to position the client for maximum exposure.

So how do you go about gaining massive visibility within your market Actually, it is very simple. Not necessarily easy, but it is a simple formula. It is all about developing systems and being very strategic in your approach to implementation of the system.

Gaining recognition is about becoming “famous” to a targeted group of people. By famous, I am not referring to world renowned. Fame in the context I am using simply means being visible to those people who make the decision to utilize and purchase your products or services. It is in this fame, or name recognition, the process of selling becomes one of being a problem solver rather than an order taker.

Gaining visibility within your market does not have to be an expensive proposition. On the other hand there will be occasions you will need to make strategically planned financial investments.

Many uninformed individuals assume advertising is all that’s necessary to market their business and gain name recognition. Advertising is only a part of your marketing, not marketing in and of itself. Unfortunately, many people waste countless dollars on ineffective ad campaigns because they were led to believe an ad was all it took for them. This happens both offline and online.

Prior to the use of the Internet in marketing campaigns, I saw person after person taken advantage of by a slick account executive who offered some amazing ad campaign. A campaign that was just too tempting for the uninformed client to resist.

Often, the campaigns were so cheap that the client simply signed on without any research. Unfortunately, many of the campaigns were very ineffective. The primary reason was because there were so many missing elements including who the target market was.

Now that the Internet has become an integral part of many marketing campaigns, the same thing is happening online as has been happening for decades offline. People are buying into campaigns without doing the necessary research.

To succeed, you must take a holistic approach to positioning you and your company. Again, one way to enjoy success is to gain visibility within your market.

However, before you will obtain the name recognition you desire you have to lay a solid foundation. The place to begin is to know your market. A few things to consider are:

• Who do you want to sell to and who would buy your product or service
• Gender
• Age
• Income level
• Industries or professions
• Education
• Interests and hobbies
• Geographic region
• Association involvement
• Lifestyle

From there you have a number of avenues you can take to gain visibility. One of the most effective is to host a complimentary informational event, seminar or workshop. It positions you as an expert and you are a resource before you are a vendor.

Events can have as few as 6 people in a workshop on up to a 500 person event. Many people miss this incredible opportunity because they don’t think they can present. My response is you are presenting all the time. It’s just a matter of what you are presenting.

With the power of the Internet you can set up a system that allows you to continually host information seminars and costs very little to market. All your marketing efforts should lead people back to your website.

A website is really intended to be more than just an electronic brochure. It should be something that gets people to take action, provides great information, is updated on a regular basis and is something people can use as a resource.

Set up you web site so that people can leave their contact information. Offer something of value to your market such as a free report, an Ezine, an Ebook or anything that creates a compelling enough reason for viewers to give you their information.

This can be done with an autoresponder. The purpose of the autoresponder is to automate the process and develop a database for future marketing efforts. Many people do nothing at all to get contact information from the dozens, hundreds or thousands of visitors to their sites. This is simply missed opportunity.

Develop a list of local media contacts you can send a press release to if the event is open to the public. Find out what their criteria for sending in a release via email is. Many will not open any attachments. So if you are sending an attached document to the media there is a good chance they won’t read it.

Make sure the release is short and to the point. Simply put, the Who, What, When, Where and Why. Many releases do not get read or published due to being poorly written or too lengthy.

Write articles with a topic that is connected to the information seminar you are offering. Send these out to various locations online such as Yahoo Groups. Add a compelling byline that encourages people to visit your website.

You can also send the article out in an Ezine format to those people who are in your database. This is the very reason you want to be able to collect people’s contact information from your website. If they leave you their contact information chances are very good they are interested in you and your products, services and various offerings.

So as not to miss those folks who are not in your online database you will be well served to also send out a direct mail piece. This piece is used to announce the event and should encourage people to visit your website to sign up for the event.

If you are strategic marketing the event you will most like gain some free publicity for yourself and your company.

The day of the presentation you absolutely must make sure people have a stellar experience. This would include the actual presentation being one that is so content filled that even if people never buy a thing from you they feel they have received incredible value.

Within 24 hours of the session send out a thank you letter highlighting key points you made during your presentation. Depending on your market the letter can be sent out via email. Mention in the letter that you would enjoy speaking at either their company or an association meeting. You will be amazed at how many opportunities this can generate if your initial presentation exceeded expectations.

Your success with this process will be determined by how consistent you are in keeping your name if front of your market. I have witnessed time and again people who will try this method once, get busy with other things and then let the system drop. What an absolute waste.

With the system outlined I have successfully promoted events in my market that have cost me less than $50 in marketing costs and realized a return of tens of thousands of dollars in revenue from subsequent sales. However, I have been using this system for years and am very consistent in my process.

As you consider the things you can do to increase your visibility and who you may choose to work with on your marketing, a couple of questions you need to ask are, “Am I willing to put the right systems in place to gain the result I want” and “Does the person I am considering to help me market my business know how to market their own business” The answers will help to determine your level of success.

Copyright © 2005 by Kathleen Gage
Web Address: www.streetsmartsmarketing.com

Publishing Guidelines: You may publish my article in your newsletter, on your web site, or in your print publication provided you include the resource box at the end. Notification would be appreciated but is not required.