I’m constantly having to step back and remind myself what I’m trying to achieve with being on social media, as it’s all too easy to get caught up in posting there and not doing any other form of marketing. So I thought I would share what I do when I take that step back, what it is I remind myself to consider.
An aside. What do I mean by “marketing”?
This is a topic for another time as this isn’t what I wanted to talk about here. But I should just point out that when I say marketing your business, really I mean “promotion of your business”.
1. Know yourself
My first (and I think most important) tip on marketing is to know your “attraction style”, because this will influence the strategy you need to adopt in your marketing.
In Marianne Cantwell’s book Be a Free Range Human (the second edition)*, she talks about what she calls attraction styles, saying that everyone she has come across in her work falls into one of the following categories – Attractor, Connector or Trusted Person.
Different styles need to take different approaches to their marketing.
I’m not going to write loads about that here, I may write a blog post specifically about this at some point. But I highly recommend reading Chapter 24 of the second edition (not the original as it wasn’t in there). of Marianne’s book, and listening to the bonus audio for more details.
You can get a taster of this topic on this podcast interview (about 16 minutes in).
A tip that follows on from this – to figure out where your money actually comes from, write a list of your last 10 new clients or projects.
Then make a note of where each one came from. Was it because people just know who you are? Was it from your website? Was it from a partnership you developed with someone else? Was it a referral? Was it someone that knows you and has worked with you before? Can you do more of whatever it was that got you those clients or projects?
*Amazon affiliate link
2. Know what you’re trying to achieve with your marketing.
(A quick note before you read on. If you do more than one thing in your business, or you have more than one business, you might want to look at these next questions for each part of your business, as the answers may be different for each.)
To have a sustainable business in the long-term, you always need to be building a pipeline of future new clients – making sure that people know, like and trust you so they can buy from you. So anything you do in the right style will also be doing that at the same time.
But is there also a short-term aim for your marketing right now? For example do you need some quick cash into your business? Or are you trying to promote a specific offer or service?
Make sure you know what the aim is before you share social media posts or do any other marketing activities.
If you’d like to chat about mapping out your own marketing activities to make sense of them and maybe simplify them, have a look at what I can help with and do get in touch.
3. Know who you want to speak to with your marketing activity
Depending on your goal, you may have different audiences that you are trying to reach at different times.
So who is in the audience for what you are trying to communicate right now?
Is it potential clients themselves? Is it other freelancers/consultants/coaches? Is it people who are generally interested in the topic you’re writing about?
And if the focus of your specific marketing activity is about communicating with your current and future clients, do you know these things about them – who are they, what do they care about, where are they spending their time? (You may need to do some market research – to have some 1:1 calls to ask them these questions. I might write a post about this at some point too!)
I find that there is always more I can learn about my clients and potential clients, and I do often forget who I’m trying to speak to when I write or create content.
4. Choose your marketing tactics accordingly.
So you’ll see that before you jump straight into a marketing activity (or ‘tactic’), it is worth thinking about who you are, what you’re trying to achieve, and who you’re trying to communicate with.
I’m guilty of this myself, I often write something for LinkedIn and wonder why nothing happens as a result of that post, or why nobody even read it. It may be that I would have been better spending my time doing a totally different activity to achieve my goal. (Although I do like LinkedIn for chatting to people, see this post for my thoughts specifically on this subject.)
Bearing in mind all of those things, you can then choose marketing channels (and social media platforms) that suit your personality, your current goal and the target audience. (Easier said than done, I know!)
5. Know what you want to say about yourself and your services
So you’ve figured out the best places to promote your services given who you are and what you do. And you know what you’re trying to achieve with all this marketing activity.
But what are you going to say?!
This is not a simple topic, so a few lines in a blog post isn’t going to give you all (or possibly any!) of the answers. And I’ll be honest, this is something I struggle with. Because I do quite a few different things, I’ve had trouble condensing that down into one or two simple sentences, or even an overall theme. It’s taken me years to evolve my description of myself and my services into what you can see on this website today, and it’s still changing as I tweak it when I figure out more about what I’m doing.
But what I can suggest is that when describing yourself and your services, you listen to what people ask you for help with. Don’t necessarily use your own words, and don’t necessarily talk about what you do eg “I’m a coach and project manager”. This is a note that I’m adding into this blog post a few months after originally writing it because it’s something I only finally understood recently. Someone sent me an email with the phrase “arty business support” in the title, asking for my help. What she wanted was a sense check, a plan, accountability coaching, progress check-ins, and some practical help with a couple of aspects of digital marketing. She didn’t say “I want a coach and project manager to help me”. And when I thought back on the way other people have asked me for help recently, they used similar terminology. So I’ve taken that on board and am trying that out.
There’s a whole extra level to consider which includes personal branding, key messages, content strategy, and the right way to start social media posts to get engagement. And I’m not an expert on those – but I know that once you’ve understood the things I’ve mentioned above, these will be much easier to figure out and use.
Fancy a chat about anything I’ve mentioned? Even if it’s to figure out who you might to ask for help. You can get in touch with me here.
6. If you’re doing social media, use it in the best way for you
And my final thought on the topic of marketing is about social media specifically. It is all too easy to jump onto social media and post without thinking too much about it. And doing that will certainly make sure you are visible and connecting with people. If you’re just trying to build connections and experiment with your writing or content styles, that works really well, and you can figure it out as you go along.
But if you do have a specific time-critical goal in mind, social media may not be the best place to start. It may not be the best way for you personally to be communicating about that thing.
Plus if you do more than one thing, you may need to be clever about how you use social media to get the most out of it in the longer-term without confusing yourself and other people.
I think there is a lot more to say on this topic as well, so another one for me to write about in more detail! But these are just a few things I have observed in my own use of social media.
In summary
I hope you’ve found this useful. There is a lot to marketing your business (or should I say promotion of your business), so I will share more of my learnings as I go on.
But if you’d like to chat about mapping out your own marketing activities to make sense of them and maybe simplify them, have a look at what I can help with and do get in touch.
If you’re not ready to work with me but would like to hear more of the thoughts that pop into my brain, you can sign up to my newsletter here.