Marketing & Growth
For years many people have raved about the benefits of keeping a diary.
Thanks to great tools like WordPress, Twitter and Evernote, recording ideas and thoughts has never been easier.
For me, regularly forcing myself to write posts for this blog helps me think through issues I’d otherwise never consider.Continue reading “Share your mind”
The Growth Hacker Marketing movement is gaining momentum. ‘Growth Hacking’ isn’t the easy way to reach your customers, because that doesn’t exist.
It’s the recognition that the most successful new startups don’t rely on big media and advertising budgets to reach their customers. Instead, they target precisely the right segment.
Communities of people who naturally look our for a type of product you offer.
This slideshare includes some of the tools we can all use to optimise our marketing. I hope you find it valuable.
My recommended reading list includes a book on Growth Hacking by Ryan Holiday. It’s a great read.
“I work long hours.”
“I’m so busy, you know how it is.”
It can mean 2 things.
They’re a hard worker. Their proud of their work and they need to put in extra time to achieve the quality they set for themselves.
They’re inefficient and easily distracted by various inboxes and impulse tasks. In an attempt to hide it, they work longer, hoping that by doing more people won’t notice they’re achieving less.
Too often I’m the latter. Which one are you?
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As cavemen (and women) we stuck together. Or tribe was our family and without one you didn’t have protection, food or connection.
Now our tribes are our passions. It’s the stand up board riders, banjo players, local tennis club and yoga class.
If you can align your business with a tribe and connect with that community on a personal level (not selling to them) you can totally change the way your fans think about you. If you contribute to the tribe, you’re one of them.
You can earn trust by being authentic. By being human. Where’s your tribe?
Join my tribe: Subscribe.
We know it’s wrong but we can’t avoid it. When we make new products we always bring our own interests to the table.
‘Those people don’t use Twitter.’
‘We should charge 99c. That’s how Apple price their apps!’
‘Our market prefers to contact us on Social Media.’
Of course, these assumptions are based on ourselves, and we try hard to apply them to our market because we desperately want to be our target market. But we’re not.
That leaves us with two choices. Drop the assumptions and make products for the market (not like us) or keep making products that we like and go bankrupt.
When we design or create things, it becomes more about how it looks than what it does. Appeal over function.
The irony is that users quickly forget what looks great. But if it works and is relevant to our needs we’ll use it every day.
The goal should be ‘how can we make this relevant’, not ‘how can we make this look great?’
The 80/20 rule is one of the most well-known theories of management and marketing.
20% of your customers, messages, employees or time give you 80% of sales, conversions and output.
It’s ironic that this is one of the rules we get wrong so often.
Why? We chase our losses. It’s a common reason for problem gambling where we fail to recognise what’s causing us so much damage.
Every time you ignore the evidence that your social media marketing is draining your time, or that your sales mainly come from a demographic you don’t particularly like, you chase your losses.
Refusing to accept where your 20% is and cutting out the ineffective 80% is a quick road to disappointment.
Let’s be more honest with ourselves and make sure our efforts are spend in the most valuable places.
We often forget that our customers are just like us. They are perceptive and intelligent.
So why do we treat them like extra work? Why do we sigh and moan about how much stress they cause us?
Let’s choose optimism over cynicism.
Serve them like you would serve your own family, because the easiest way to lose a customer is to treat then like one.
We’re used to advertising that’s full of stereotypes, poor humour and irrelevant imagery.
This one’s different and there’s 2 reasons why it works so well:
The biggest thing to take away from this ad is that simplicity works and we should always focus on how the product makes you feel.
Image CC Martin Abegglen
The problem with neutral messages (ignored by your audience) is that they aren’t actually neutral.
Every time we interrupt someone’s day with our message we are asking for permission. Permission to get inside their head and prove that we have something to offer them.
Too many times we fail to offer anything of value. And each time we fail, we don’t just get another free go. We lose some, if not all, of the influence we once had.
It could be that our target is too big (not targeted) or, more likely, the idea sucks.
When I watch a mediocre TV ad, I not only ignore it’s message, I actively detest the brand forever. “What a waste of time,” I think to myself.
Your audience does the same. Whenever we interrupt a colleague with useless news or complain about trivial frustrations we lose the permission to do it next time and the opportunity is lost.
Communication is not a right, it’s a privilege we can’t afford to waste.
We all spend time and money on different ways to get customers or to keep them.
But how do we know what works? Many assume that spending more money on advertising is the answer to all business problems.
But many times we fail to measure how effective each message is and, usually, we find out that we aren’t breaking even on each ad we buy.
Turning the tap on harder when the pipe is leaking is only going to make the leak worse. The truth is we might be better off handing out the money on the street.
So make sure you know, really know, where you’re leaks are and understand that more doesn’t always equal better.
Sean Blake Blog