Marketing

Why They’re Not Paying Attention

Garth Beyer

If you’re working to make people love your product or service, you’re likely interrupting their daily lives.

Better, I think, to make something people love and can integrate into their life. The best thing to hear is “I’ve always wanted this, I didn’t think anyone made it.”

That’s not to say you have to make something new, start a new business or find a new client. Quite the opposite.

If there is force, pressure, and stress to get people to love your product, then you’re not listening to them, not targeting the people who care. It’s a marketing problem, not a people problem.

Despite the excessive use of social media, it’s still difficult to listen and understand the customers worldview. Easier to get on with the traditional marketing practice of talking about ourselves and our product and our business instead of focusing on what’s in it for them.

There’s often no way to label a particular marketing practice or tactic as traditional and un-traditional, it’s more so a mindset of the marketer, an attitude of someone who cares.

 

Stay Positive & Do Something Worth Paying Attention For

Giving Is The New Advertising

Garth Beyer

Here’s advertising I think we can all get behind: advertising that gives viewers what they want.

PostIt follows you around so banner ads become a list of things you want to remember.

Businesses like McDonalds are now buying the ad space of Pandora to give you 30 minutes of no-ad listening.

Even podcast advertising is seeing the benefit of giving. It’s a podcast norm that hosts advertise products and services they use and care about – no pre-recorded voiceover here.

I did lead you astray with the title. Giving isn’t necessarily new advertising as it has always been the best kind of advertising, we’re just slowly catching on.

 

Stay Positive & No One Cares About Being Interrupted If They Get A Gift For It

All Good Marketing…

Garth Beyer

is consistent marketing.

Maintaining brand voice, which is hard, is only one piece of marketing. So is keeping up with customer service in terms of response rate.

When you demonstrate you know who your product is for by stating “people like us…,” you lock in consistency. But when you open the door to the masses, your marketing loses consistency and you customer service response rate tumbles and your brand voice is lost.

People respond to consistency. It’s how you build a tribe. It’s why they keep showing up.

 

Stay Positive & There’s No One Path To Remarkability, There’s Only Staying On A Path

In The Box Podcast

Episode 17: Team Building Failure, Brand vs. Customer Voice, Self-Reliance And More – Podcast

Garth Beyer

On this episode of In The Box Podcast, we wrapped up our thoughts on luck, talked about why most startups fail, the difference between responding and reacting, and how much self-reliance is too much.

We also explored the idea of changing a brand voice to suit the voice of a publication one is pitching to and why many groups fall apart.

Give it a listen on itunes and subscribe.

Episode 17: Team Building Failure, Brand vs. Customer Voice, Self-Reliance And More

Luck – Trust that things will always work out.

Startups – Why do you think most startups fail?

Team building failure – Do many groups fall apart because of poor character dynamics or because the purpose of the group isn’t strong enough?

Brand vs Customer Voice – To get a publication or blogger to cover your business, should you choose your brand voice to fit their style or should you forget them and only seek out those who either speak or value your brand voice even if it doesn’t resonate with their own?

Respond vs react – How do you differentiate between responding and reacting?

Self-reliance – Is there such a thing as too much self-reliance?

 

Stay Positive & Is Your Purpose Clear?

Telling Your Story

Garth Beyer

It pays to work on your story, to figure it out before you launch or reach out to publications, but what entrepreneurs often forget is they don’t have as much control over their story as they think they do.

You can tell your story to every guest that walks in, but when they walk out, all that matters is the story they tell others, which may not be the one you told them.

The best stories are about businesses who listen and do, not those who profess their story before they ask you for your order or tell you their story as they’re checking out your items.

Listen and do. Let your guests tell the story.

 

Stay Positive & Talk With The Interest Of Listening More

Where Marketers Get Themselves In Trouble

Garth Beyer

Marketers like to make big predictions based off small tests.

  • You flush out three different uses for a product and state there are 10 other uses for it.
  • You land a spot in a major publication, then tell your boss you’ll have no problem meeting the expected quota this month.
  • You find a handful of original pins to repin on Pinterest and then plan to repin 100 a month.
  • You know an easy way to start a fire and advertise to invest in your way because there are a dozen hard ways.

If you’re going to make a big suggestion, flush it out.

Take the fire starting example: figure out those 12 ways to start a fire that are hard even if you won’t showcase them all. Not only does it add to your authentic voice because you know you’re telling the truth about there being a dozen ways, but it also gives you content to use down the line.

Consider the big predictions, but see them through before you talk about them.

Either you’ll garner more support as in the fire starting example or you’ll realize how flawed your prediction is as in the original repins (there really isn’t much originality on Pinterest).

 

Stay Positive & Think Big (But Act On It Before You Profess)

The Forgotten Market

Garth Beyer

There’s a huge market comprised of people who notice, who are patient, who are watching to see if you show up every day, and if you show up with a consistent passion and focus in your work.

Bernadette is likely the best-type of friend you can make if you’re a brand. She notices good work. She’s part of the forgotten market.

She’s part of the tortoise market, rather than the hare market.

Social has brought us to think we have to appeal to the hare market to succeed; we have to be first, we have to share the most information, we have to continuously thrash (which has it’s place), we have to spread ourselves out, but so much of the racing is to the bottom.

I get caught up in the race from time to time when doing work for clients. Rushing means missing out on thinking about things differently, which requires information to sit for a bit. Thrashing has its place, but only if that’s the market you want to live in.

Think about it, Bernadette would have never talked to the painter if he were racing each day to get the job done, if he had thrown the tarps on the ground instead of graciously laying them out.

You have the choice to be picky about who you appeal to, and I suggest you consider it because all of not only what you do, but how you do it is dictated by the market you’re communicating with.

One isn’t better than the other. It merely does you, your work, and your clients justice to consider what market you want to speak to.

 

Stay Positive & Each Market Is A Lifestyle, Not Just A Marketing Style