Creative techniques to strategically attract audiences.

Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

The Importance of Marketing to your Target Audience

Posted by Alex Rodríguez

 

Let’s talk about marketing. If you were a vegetarian and saw ads on your Facebook feed announcing an upcoming Bacon Festival, would you go? Or let’s say you support one political party, and a representative of the opposing party handed you a flyer about an upcoming fundraiser, would you attend? If the answer to these questions is a big, resounding NO, why are you advertising to people who don’t want your services?

Figure out exactly who’s your target

Make a specific list of desired criteria. What’s your market’s location, age, income bracket, and anything else that might be relevant to your product. Do your homework by studying statistics and survey results. Visit discussion forums such as Reddit. You can use their search box to type in any topic related to your business and see what online users are discussing. It’s a nifty way to get insights into their thoughts. By learning what’s important to your audience, you’ll be able to better tailor your services or product to their needs.

Keep your ads within your arena

Social media makes it so easy to create targeted ads. With Facebook for Business, you click through icons, stating what your specific goals are. If you want to generate leads, the website will guide you through the process of customizing your target audience. Twitter offers a similar tool, in which you can specify what your perfect customer would have as their interests. Consequently, you’ll get much better results than blindly releasing advertising material.

Be mindful about your advertising. You must have a well-researched strategy. Casting a wide net when you send ads will have the same result as sending junk mail to your mailbox: it will go directly into a recycling or trash bin, unread. All those trees, torn down for nothing. Don’t let the same thing happen to your marketing budget.

How Your Personal Life Affects Your Professional Branding

Posted by Alex Rodríguez

Remember that movie, Face Off, in which John Travolta and Nicholas Cage had each other’s faces transplanted onto the other’s head? It was confusing to watch one person acting like the other, instead of seeing them behave according to their characters’ own personalities.

The same thing happens when who you are in your personal life differs radically from who you are in your professional capacity. It’s understandable that there be a time and place for everything. We obviously don’t act the same way during a happy hour than we would at a business meeting, but if you show up as one thing during your front-facing engagements but are completely different from the actual real you, it will eventually affect your personal branding.

Whether by not generating any meaningful impact, or prematurely falling out of grace, it’s best to just keep check of who you are, and pay attention to how that might reflect on your image in business.

Perception Vs. Reality

Think about someone who’s known for their charitable contributions to society. Let’s use the late Princess Diana as an example.

She became known for hugging people living with HIV during a decade where it was taboo to do so. She spent time with victims of land mines. It was this image that gave her the nickname of Queen of People’s Hearts.

The worldwide perception was that she was genuinely altruistic. We didn’t see a “private” Diana vs. her public persona. Had it turned out that she lacked compassion, and that news became public knowledge after a leaked private conversation, her image would have been tarnished.

By the same token, if you’re doing the rounds within your field to market your business, how you act during your down time could have an impact on your efforts. Almost everyone these days has a smartphone and their own social media accounts. If you treat people with respect both on a personal and a professional level, no matter where you are or who you’re with, people will notice. At the same time, if you become belligerent at the slightest provocation, or are condescending towards others, people will also notice. Fundamentally, there has to be a synergy between your personal and your professional personas.

In this age of ubiquitous information, you can no longer bet on the safety net of anonymity. No matter where you are, you are always branding yourself. Who you really are will always shine through. Make sure you are sending the right message.

(Marketing Calculator) How much should you spend on marketing?

Posted by Alex Rodríguez

lessons-learned

Have you ever wondered how much it makes sense to spend on your Digital Marketing?

Instead of giving you a flat, one-size-fits-all number, would having access to a Marketing Calculator, so that you can work from actual numbers that make sense for your own business, help you?

If so, read on! (And keep scrolling until the end for a free offer from me!)

Many business owners come to me wondering what’s possible in Digital Marketing, without a sliver or an idea on what type of budget they are willing to invest.

I understand there is a ton of confusion in this space, from people thinking that they must spend 100% of their revenue into marketing, to others fooling themselves into thinking that being “in the social media era” means that they can make six or seven figures without any kind of investment.

Here’s the reality: It’s so easy to calculate a proper budget, that on the most basic level, you can do it by just answering three questions.

And these aren’t questions that require huge essays as responses. I’m talking about three simple numbers, and numbers you probably know already, or can figure out pretty easily.

These are exactly the type of calculations I use when I consult business owners and executives, to ensure that their marketing investment is profitable and pays for itself. Now you can run the numbers completely on your own to make sure your plans are as profitable!

The calculator is here below. Have fun with it, and run the calculations as many times as you need! Sometimes it’s helpful to play with different scenarios until the right plan comes up.

Once the results look good to you, if you’d like to discuss what to do next, I’m available for a free 15-minute call. Just schedule some time with me right here.

Hope this helps!

What is Creative Strategy, and why does it matter?

Posted by Alex Rodríguez

What_is_creative

“So what is this “Creative Strategy” thing all about? Is it just another buzzword?”

When trying to communicate a special message, with the goal of influencing others in some manner, the two main issues people and businesses struggle with are:

Struggle #1- How can they compose a message that is clear, relevant, and stands out above the noise?

In this age of information literally moving at the speed of light, anyone trying to communicate has to fight against an enormous giant: An incredible volume of information and content all competing at the same time for people’s attention. Our message can have the potential to transmit an amazing level of value, and still be buried under a daunting number of options our target audience needs to weed through to perceive it. A few facts that might surprise you:

It is apparent that communicating a valuable message, and outputting that message as forcefully and strategically as possible, is no longer enough in the current technology landscape.

Struggle #2- What can they do to ensure their message is effectively received?

At the same time, being original and unique is no longer anything to be proud of if our message reaches a very small segment of our intended audience. Many genius ideas have died in the dark alleys of obsolescence or invisibility. However, placing a sign with the highest available exposure, like an amazingly expensive ad on the ground of the World Soccer Cup field, is just not an option for the great majority of businesses.

In most cases, businesses won’t be able to leverage capital to gain exposure, and a highly-creative message often does very little on its own to expand its reach. However, these same businesses tend to put all their focus on these two elements (capital and creativity), while forgetting another essential component entirely.

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These two problems can be very strong obstacles to overcome, and when they’re not overcome, they’ve crippled some of the greatest businesses and initiatives around the globe. So what is the solution?

Now that you understand the problems, I would like to invite you to read the solution I propose, which I’ve made available as an easy-to-read ebook. All you need to do is input your email address on the right side (or on the bottom if you’re on a mobile device), and I’ll send it to you right away for free.

Update: Sorry! The Creative Strategy Manifesto is no longer available for free. It will be rewritten, expanded and published soon.

In the meantime, if you haven’t done so, feel free to download The Attraction Checklist for free! Just sign up and I’ll send it to your email inbox.

Eyeballs? Numbers? Or just people?

Posted by Alex Rodríguez

One of the things that drives me crazy about my fellow marketers is a habit that has turned into part of their daily glossary: referring to viewers or audiences as “eyeballs”. For example, when something gets mass visibility, it is said to have attracted “lots of eyeballs.”

Now I know that this is meant as a funny way to put an image to a number. A way to make something as abstract as a statistic into a concrete image.

But… could we just refer to them as “people”?

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