For this week’s post, I want everyone to think big, really big in fact!
Because below you’ll find some tips that are absolutely guaranteed to help you win in the short, medium and well…very long term.
In fact, using them will help you massively extend your own personal brand, and your customer lifetime value – but again – you’ll need to be ambitious, put the work in and trust in the process…
HOW TO GET ATTENTION FROM YOUR TARGET MARKET?
Well sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but in a nutshell, you’ll know that it’s a lot of work to get cut through to your target market without a massive marketing budget.
You can push and publish, and push and reach out, but at the end of the day, not many people are going to give a rat’s ass about who you are, what you do, and what you sell.
I have this problem, you probably have it, most SMEs are always on the hunt for the next hot lead…(if you don’t have this problem, then congratulations on your sales utopia – please do reply to this email with your growth strategy and I’ll buy the beers next time we meet!)
But it’s not your fault…it’s just the nature of the sales funnel and how much time (and money) you need to stay competitive and get attention amongst all the online noise, noise, noise…
Of course, it’s not all doom and gloom – there are loads of great businesses with clear growth playbooks, viral sensations and highly creative marketing campaigns that achieve success – but for every big winner, there’s likely another 100 strategies that just haven’t worked out or been worth the ROI.
So today I want to share with you a guaranteed way to get long-lasting cut-through with your target market, build lasting relationships and develop a list of highly engaged leads…
It’s time to transcend your own business (ouch, says all our egos) and start to have more influence on the world as a category owner!
MAKE THE CATEGORY, NOT YOUR BUSINESS THE HEADLINE
Okay, so this is how it works. Instead of fully focusing on selling your business in the short term (please also work on this), work on a growth strategy that will help you grow your user base as each and every year compounds.
You can do this by transcending our own business and looking at building up a community/content hub in a highly relevant niche or sub-category (or categories) that you can own and leverage in the future:
For example:
🍁 It would be difficult for me to launch a ‘Jonny Quirk CBD’ drinks business today… but there’s definitely a potential strong audience for a ‘CBD for athletes’ or ‘CBD for over 50’s’ community, educational content and events program.
💸 Your Fintech around smart investing may have a high CPA, but alongside this, you could build niche sub-communities around each of your target markets such as ‘money management for students’, bringing you a highly relevant audience right to you.
☕️ Struggling to get cut-through and differentiate your coffee beans business from everyone else? You could run a city-wide ‘Coffee connoisseurs club’ or ‘Mums on maternity leave’ community that positions your coffee business however you want to be perceived.
and of course… always put ‘Powered by’ your brand on your digital assets, at your events or anywhere else. Remember, the story isn’t about you – it’s about the category you can own and the value you can offer to those people in terms of education and solving their day-to-day problems in an ambient way.
You’ll win in the long term as people get to meet you, hear about your story and be exposed to your message time and time again…but think of this as natural, personality-led marketing…your brand and product can happily exist in the background…paradoxically being omnipresent whilst also existing in the shadows…
THE ADDED BENEFIT OF THIS CATEGORY OWNER STRATEGY IS THAT YOU’LL ALSO OWN ALL THE…
- Social media channels
- Email marketing lists
- Meetup/Eventbrite groups
- Relationships with partners
- Blog, podcasts or YouTube channels
When we say build a community – you could just dip your toe in the water at first and do one of the above activities… as long as it brings people together and helps people become aware that you exist!
You could spend 100% of your time selling your product or service, or you could split your effort into building a community that will offer deep deep value over time…
🧠 So what category could you start to own that’s relevant to your business?
Cheers,
Jonny