Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You. Hello and welcome to marketing and life the Bolshevites. This podcast is for critical thinkers, savvy entrepreneurs, and curious minds of all walks of life. Here we worship no gods, nor celebrities. We learn, we laugh, and we think independently.
[00:00:21] To get the show on the road this week, we'll start with the basics in marketing, and we will define it in simple words, we’ll dethrone anyone who needs posh language to express one of the most human oriented professions out there. And yes, I am still talking about marketing. So let's get into it.
[00:00:39] Before we begin, let's clarify something. Why is marketing language so complex? Have you noticed that lately, everything about marketing sounds either unintelligible or at best, encrypted? Every profession goes through this stage as complexity grows in a profession such as more tools, opportunities, et cetera, that we are seeing in marketing, people start coming up with acronyms to try and make their life a little bit easier. But complex language that confuses rather than explains has been the Goto communication method for people who are trying to boost their confidence for millennia. So don't be surprised that you don't understand most of what is said. This, quite literally, is their goal. See, the less you understand when somebody is talking, the more likely you are to think that the speaker or the writer or whoever is smarter than you, and therefore they deserve your respect. Obviously, that's not necessarily the case, but that's enough on human nature. So let's now move on to actual marketing.
[00:01:47] Although it has indeed become a more complex profession, the basics are still the same. The reason it's become more complex is because back in the day, we did not have social media. The Internet wasn't that much of an influence. Now we have to try and learn how to live into this digital age with all of its opportunities, including automation, AI, and all of these complex things. And therefore the tools and channels have become more complex. However, the basics of marketing is still the same. And this is what I really, really badly want to emphasize on.
[00:02:21] If you are in marketing, and in business for that matter, because marketing is business and business is marketing. End of story. I don't know why we have to have this discussion. We don't.
[00:02:31] If you are in any of those marketing or business, there are six audiences that you need to care about when it comes to your company's ability to sell your products.
[00:02:43] We'll go through them in a list, and then we'll look into each of those audiences and the type of marketing, the type of message, the type of communication you need to be creating. As a business owner or as a marketer. For those audiences, firstly, you have the general public. This is one of the first audiences that you have to think about. Out of the general public, you will have a portion of people who have heard of you. That's your second audience. Your third audience are those who are considering you. So obviously out of the bunch that have heard about you, there are some who are considering you. Finally. Not finally, sorry. Then the fourth audience is those who are ready to buy from you. So they've gone through the consideration stage. They're now ready to buy from you. There's something that might be keeping them. It could be that they're at work. It could be that they're traveling somewhere. It could be that they're waiting for the payday. Anything could be keeping them from buying from you. But they are ready. Out of those who are ready to buy from you, obviously there are some who will jump into the next stage, which is they are already buying from you. They're in the process of purchasing. And that's your fifth audience. And finally, your 6th audience is those who have bought from you. So people who've already gone through the process receive their products or service and have the tag completed on them. As a marketer or an entrepreneur, your aim, obviously, is to try and increase the pool of people in each of those audiences, not the general public, clearly, because the general public is a static, well, not a static, but you know what I mean.
[00:04:17] Or you are trying to increase the so called share of wallets, or what people spend with you, how much of their wallets they're willing to share with you. This is why as people, we have come up with so many tricks and techniques to entice and delight potential and existing customers, because we want to either increase share of wallets or increase the pool of people we have in each of those groups.
[00:04:40] Everything that you do in marketing and in business, let me emphasize that quite literally everything from coming up with a five year plan down to the tedious job of editing a spreadsheet with client data or anything that you do, will always be done in service of one of those groups. And it is a great thing that as a marketer, if as a marketer or entrepreneur, you can put this into your brain and whenever you're doing whatever it is that you've got to do at this point in time, have an understanding who you're doing it for, because who you're doing it for will inform who are you doing it for? Will inform the goal that you have.
[00:05:23] So let's get into each one of those individual audiences and see how you communicate with them. What is the purpose, what is their stage and how your message needs to resonate. First, we'll begin with the general public.
[00:05:38] When you market to the general public, it means that you're trying to get people to know that you exist. This is quite literally the only purpose of that message. Your social media, you're going to do that through social media, content creation, banner advertising, billboard advertising, search engine optimization, going to conferences, trying to get speaking engagements and other means, and all of these things. With all of these things, you're trying to raise awareness about your existence. You're not trying to sell a product at this stage, and this is very important that you remember that. You're not trying to sell a product, you're not trying to talk about features, you're not trying to talk about benefits, the plans you have for the future. All you want to know, all you want them to know is you want them to know that you exist. That's it. Some companies call this demand generation when they're trying to get people to understand that there is an actual problem that needs solving and that they are a possible partner to solve that with. Other companies call this awareness. In either case, whenever you're doing something for the general public, you have to come out of the assumption that your audience will have no clue who you are and what you do and why you do it.
[00:06:56] This type of communication will always be one sided, so you can't expect the general public to react it. Even if it does, you are likely to get one of two things, either questions or hate comments. The latter, obviously, hate comments are preferred to nothing. Hate comments means that you've been noticed, and from that moment onward, you get to change that person's perception of you. So you don't drown in that negativity. It's merely they're assigned to say I see you. So let's repeat that. When you are marketing to the general public, the type of communication that you need to be created will be one sided. And the purpose of that message is not to explain the features and benefits and yada, yada, yada of your products or services. All you want to do is be noticed. All you want to do is make sure that they know that you exist. This is the only purpose. This is going to be your first step when you start going out there to have a business, whatever that is. Much as this podcast, all it aims to do is get you to understand that we exist, that I am here, I'm a life person. I know what I'm talking about.
[00:08:09] Then, as we said from the general public, you are going to have a type of audience, which is your second audience of people who have heard of you. Now, once someone knows who you are, you have made a win. It may not feel like it, and it can never be measured. I mean, no company really knows how many people are aware of its existence, and not even the large multibillion dollar corporations. And that is fine.
[00:08:35] It is what it is. And what you do with the familiarity is what matters, not how much familiarity there is. So when your audience moves from I've never heard of you, to, oh, I've seen you somewhere, your communication now aims to create a connection. You're still reaching people via the same means. So it's still going to be social media, advertising, search engine optimization, content creation, et cetera.
[00:09:03] But now the aim is to create an emotional reaction, to link the person's concerns to yours, and to suggest that perhaps your products or services might solve an issue for them or satisfy a want. As you notice, I mentioned that the channels that you're going to reach your audience are identical as the first time. So effectively, for social media, you will be developing two type of content. You'll be developing the type of content which is for the general public, hoping that when it reaches somebody who's never heard of you, they will remember you. That's all it needs to do. And then the second type of content, which you will be creating for the second audience that has already heard of you, is going to be the type of content which aims to get the person to resonate with your values. So if your company is out there to solve anxiety as a world problem, then you need to get people to resonate with how you think and how you feel about anxiety. And if you're hearing some snoring in the background, that is just my dog enjoying dog life.
[00:10:10] So remember that this type of communication is not about features or descriptions. Again, this is not about products. This is not about services. It's about what concerns your company is set out to address.
[00:10:23] And when you're out there to talk about your product, this is going to be for a completely different audience. So not quite yet. Many companies go out there forgetting that people need to have gone through a few stages to realize that a problem is something they might need. Smart companies will introduce themselves before they pitch a product, because guess what? We are more likely to buy from somebody we know and somebody we feel familiar with.
[00:10:58] There's no wonder why any kind of advertising still works. When you see something often enough, you develop a level of familiarity with that. Even if you don't necessarily care about a specific brand, you develop a level of familiarity that makes you feel more at ease.
[00:11:16] So let me give you an example. If you have an app which is designed to help people with anxiety, again, the line of communication that we have for this audience is going to talk about anxiety as an issue. The aim of that communication is going to be to get people to believe that you know what you're talking about and to get them to trust that you are indeed an authority on the matter. Don't fall into the belief that everyone, however, who hears or reads whatever you've done or watches a video will instantly fall in love with your message. That won't be the case, and that's absolutely fine. Your tone of voice, your language, the way that you see a specific issue is going to be very unique to you, and some people are never going to believe in what you believe. We have a very vivid example right now. There are many companies out there that believe in remote working, and there are even more employees that believe in remote working. But there are also many companies that will tell you that they don't believe in remote working. They actually want to see you in person and they believe in the in person communication. So however much you want to talk about remote working, if the person doesn't resonate with that message, if the person doesn't believe in what you believe, they won't become an audience that you can further communicate with. So the purpose of your communication with that initial with that second audience with the people who have heard of you, is to extract the ones that resonate with your message.
[00:12:58] Whilst you do that, the aim of your communication will be to get them to stick around somehow. Will that mean that they will follow you on social media? Will that mean that they will subscribe to a newsletter, join a membership community that you have? Whichever, the purpose of that communication will be to get them to stick around. So when you send out social media posts for that audience, don't pitch them a product right away, don't send them over to a website, send them up to a newsletter, do something for them that will help them stick around so they can start trusting you more. So let's move over to the third audience or the audience that is considering you. So we had the first audience, general public. We had the audience of people who have heard of you, but don't really know much about you yet. Now we're in the stage of talking about those who are considering you. So once someone has resonated with your message and they've become interested in what you have to say, they will start considering your company, your product or your service as an option to solve their problems.
[00:14:06] This is the moment where your usb or unique selling proposition comes into play. Here your communication is going to be about more about the benefits of using your product. This is where you really have to hit home with what your unique selling proposition is. And let me just remind you that within your unique selling proposition, you should not forget to mention your audience.
[00:14:33] That's going to be a brittle example. But if you have lemons, for instance, your lemons might be either perfect for decorating because you tend to choose the most perfectly shaped, right kind of yellow lemons without seeds. So they're perfect for decoration. They're perfect for catering companies. Or you might be picking the most juicy, sweet lemons, which are perfect for baking. Or you might be picking the most sour lemons, which are perfect for specific type of cooking, maybe chinese. So remember that whatever kind of product you have, you can narrow down your unique selling proposition to explain to which audience that product will be most useful. Because a person who decorates tables for a living, so they're in catering, they decorate tables for a living, they need lemons to decorate them. Tables. If those lemons have too many seeds, you're going to make their life difficult. So you see how a very, very simple example could be very obvious.
[00:15:40] So, as with this audience, not everyone will be ready to go ahead. So in your general public, not everyone will care that you exist, not everyone will notice. From those that have realized that you exist, not everyone will be willing to consider you. And from those who are considering you, not everyone will go ahead. It may not be the right time, or they may not have the financial means, or something else might be blocking them. But this is a strong audience nonetheless. Those people are willing to hear you out, and that is a powerful place to be it. So when you are communicating to this audience, the key thing to remember is that you must allow room for continuous engagement, even for those who aren't quite ready yet.
[00:16:28] So if we go back to the previous example, even if for the previous audience, we said, find a way to get them to subscribe to newsletter, stick around, hear from you again, this becomes ten times more important for this audience. So within the audience that is considering you, you have to get them to stick around. Now, the best way to get this particular audience to stick around is going to be by having some funnels with lead magnets. And if this kind of terminology is too much for you. Then stick around, because in next episodes, we're going to be talking about funnels. We're going to be talking about lead magnets more and in more depth. But the best way to get this audience to stick around is by offering them something of value. And lead magnets are a great way to do that.
[00:17:19] Typically, this communication will happen mostly on your website's feature or testimonial pages, or via email or via membership portal if you allow membership. So you have to remember that you need to have a let's be friend type of message across all of your digital channels. Preferably because an in person channel will mean that you actually have physical shop and you get people to come in. But even that is not a bad thing. Get people to come browse in your shop when they're still considering you. That is a great thing to do.
[00:17:54] So out of those who are considering you, there's going to be those who are ready to buy from you. So here we are at our fourth audience, I believe. So let's just. Yeah, that is our fourth audience. Those who are ready to buy from you. When someone makes the decision to buy from you, they might make it whilst they're on your website or your social media profile, which he ho, that's amazing.
[00:18:19] But they also might make that decision while when they wake up in the morning or when they're getting dressed, if, for instance, you sell clothing, or maybe when they're cooking, if you sell kitchenware. Or they might even make that decision whilst they're having a chat with someone because they're discussing a specific issue or a pain that they're going through, there is no one way a purchasing decision is made. And we all know that we've made decision in different instances. So when you think about the marketing activities that you conduct for this audience that is ready to buy from you, your one and only job, and I want to really stress this, your one and only job in the world is to ensure that they don't give up in the last minute. So you have to have a buying process that doesn't kill your buyer. I cannot tell you how many times in England you have got a lot of work to do on this area. In this area, you have no idea how many times in England companies have literally broken me on the way to purchase something and have made me give up 70% in the process or 80% in the process. It's a remarkably easy thing to do. And this is yet another topic that we will discuss in great detail. Further down the line.
[00:19:47] So when marketing to those folks, make their life easy, here are some of the key things that your marketing strategy will need to focus on. There are four key things. Firstly, make yourself available. Even if you're selling unlimited product and there's a five year long waiting list, signing up to that list should be easy to find. Don't make your potential customers jump through stupid hoops just to buy from you. Check your ecommerce stability. Ensure that process runs smoothly. Make sure that your contact forms work. Optimize for every device out there. Basically, focus on being easy to find. Remember that saying, I don't know who said it, but remember that saying, be easy to find and hard to reach. I mean, this is obviously for building up someone's personal reputation, but for business, just be easy to find. It's a no brainer. Secondly, make conditions easy to understand if buying from you involves work from the side of the customer. Any type of work. Giving you measurements, signing up paperwork, any type of work. Make sure that your potential customers understand everything that is expected from them and any and all limitations of your products and services.
[00:21:11] Open your ears wide for this. Do not fall victim of the belief that if you don't say it, they won't see it. When lying to your customer fires back. It's always a bigger issue than sharing a feature limitation in advance. If there is something that your product or service cannot achieve for your clients, or if there is an area in which they need to put up an incredible amount of effort to achieve that, say it.
[00:21:39] Just say it.
[00:21:43] There is a lot of companies out there right now, and I am particularly hinting towards all gym apps and getting better apps and all of that. All of them advertise themselves as those apps that change your life and tend to find the users that have been the most consistent with the usage of the app and demonstrate their achievements. Now, we all know that if somebody is a consistent person by nature, they will get good results anyway.
[00:22:17] The app was merely a tool that they used. I mean, that's what critical thinking will tell you. If somebody is determined to learn how to paint fantastically, whether they're using app a, app b or app c, their own determination and their own consistency will get them to where they need to be.
[00:22:41] The same thing is valid for many products. Do not be fooled into thinking that, oh, if I don't say that to customers, it's quite obvious. Why do I need to say it? You need to say it. You absolutely need to say it. Because when at the end of the day, 95% of your customers get the app. Having seen all of those promises of those consistent people and don't get the same results. Yes, they will blame themselves, but also that blame and that negativity association will leak back onto your product. And every single time from that moment onwards, when they see your app or when they see your product or service, they will instantly think of that bad emotion that got them when they couldn't achieve the results that you were promising. So again, on the second topic here, for the audience that is ready to buy from you, make sure that everything is easy to understand and that you speak openly about the limitations of your products or services.
[00:23:42] Thirdly, automate your initial response. This is a silly little thing. It's a no brainer. I cannot stress this enough, but when a customer buys from you, they must receive an email confirmation within a few minutes. Whatever your purchasing process is, whether it's ecommerce signed document via email, you have to send an automatic response with the next steps in just about a few minutes. Don't let somebody send you money and then sit back and think, what's happening now? Has this gone through? Have I really made the purchase? What am I doing now? Don't. Don't put your customers in a limbo ever.
[00:24:20] And finally, but perhaps most importantly for that audience, have clear sales and delivery process of your products and services that is made available to your customers right away. Get them to understand what is the expected delivery time before they sign up. Never, and I repeat never, leave a customer in a limbo wondering what is next. There is quite literally nothing worse for a customer than giving their money to someone who confuses them. And here I will tell you about my DFS experience. A few years ago we bought a couch from DFS. We went, we saw the couch, we liked it.
[00:24:59] The delivery time was something absolutely ridiculous. We waited over four months for that couch. When we purchased the couch, we also had a 0% finance available which came down to some stupid amount per month. And when somebody offers you 0% finance, I am not equipped to give financial advice, but it seems like a no brainer that I will take the 0% finance since paying upfront would be exactly that same amount. So I'd much rather keep my money, have them bring me interest, and then pay a small sum per month. Anyway, back to the DFS experience. We got the couch, we chose the 0% interest and we left the store. We got all the paperwork done. We left the store. Two weeks later, we got the first notification. Then it may have been probably three weeks after that we got the second notification at all point in time. DFS kept us in a loop, which I am pretty sure an automatic email telling us what was the stage of our couch at that particular moment in time. So we didn't have to sit down at the end of a long day and go, oh, what happened with that couch that we ordered? We knew they had provisionally made sure that we are aware of everything that's going on, so we don't have to wonder. Which was fantastic because they never got a call from us. We didn't have to reach back to the customer support team, which will most probably have been the case had we have to wait for, I don't know, four months without having heard from anyone.
[00:26:42] So this is about the audience that is ready to buy from you.
[00:26:49] Make that process obvious.
[00:26:52] Now we move on to those who are currently buying from you. So those people who are going through the motions through the process out of those who are ready to buy from you. Not everyone is going to go through. However well you prepare. You're always going to have a portion of people that leave your website or your physical store without having bought from you, and that's fine. It happens.
[00:27:17] In some instances, we have zero control over the situations. But once it comes to those who buy from you, many people and many businesses think that marketing stops there. It doesn't. No, it doesn't. Now that you've gotten someone's commitment and money, this is not the end of it. You cannot move on to finding someone else to learn it, or learn to commercial obedience.
[00:27:41] Here, your plan is to get that person through raving about how fantastic you are. If not if. Your plan is to create a new business every few years after destroying the first one, by all means, go ahead and stop focusing on the customer once they have given you their money. But if you're around to stay, you have to make sure that you're turning your marketing brain on for those of your customers who are currently in their buying journey.
[00:28:14] Do you know with that in mind, do you know when people post bad reviews? It's when it's either impossible to reach a company or when the company clearly doesn't care and people are just having a bad experience. I mean, obviously there is the occasional weirdo who would go against you even if you did everything right. But that's not the majority of your clients. So make sure that you have a follow up process that allows your customers to praise you or to tell you that something is wrong. Ask questions, share recommendation for using the product or service, whatever it is. Make yourself available.
[00:28:53] Let me repeat this after the sale. The key thing your marketing needs to do is make yourself available.
[00:29:01] All right? Don't disappear once the sale is made. Regardless of whether you think that the customer will come back or not, the ones who know who you are will either defend or defame your name when you are not in the room. So do not forget that you are in charge of setting the scene right.
[00:29:24] And finally, the final audience, those that have bought from you. We all have products that we've bought and either loved or hated, but have no recollection of the name of the company that we bought it from. I have a fresh example. I recently bought a drinks cabinet and it's shaped like the traditional UK phone boots that we all know and love. It's not red, it's brown wood color, but it's absolutely beautiful.
[00:29:51] As a matter of fact, I actually bought that with PayPal's paying three options, so I still have another repayment to do at the end of this month. However, I cannot for the life of me tell you the name of the company I bought it from. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the process of purchasing. Delivery was fine, and even though it was all very faceless, it was all in all a good purchasing experience. I love my drinks cabinet, but the company stopped marketing to me right away, so now I cannot recommend them even if I wanted to.
[00:30:24] Had they decided to send me a weekly or a monthly email, well, guess what?
[00:30:29] I wouldn't have unsubscribed because, well, I love my item and I would probably have stayed on their mailing list for a while and might have even remembered their name, but now I don't. So when it comes to marketing to people who already bought from you, don't assume that just because they were a customer once, they will know and remember who you are. Like prime example right here. Stay connected, be humble, and be thankful to those who share their wealth with you and just continue that communication.
[00:31:05] It is okay if they choose to unsubscribe and to forget about you. You cannot control what people do, but you can at least know that you have tried your best.
[00:31:16] So let's go through those again as a summary. We have six audiences. The general public, those who have heard of you, those who are considering you, those who are ready to buy from you, those who are currently buying from you, and those who already went through the process.
[00:31:33] For the general public, all you want is for them to realize that you exist. The style of communication that you create for your general public, anything that you do for the general public will be the type of I am here kind of message. Not about your product, not about your services. It's about you, why you're there, who you are. The second audience is the people who have heard of you. With them, it's about why you exist, what is it that you are doing, why they should care.
[00:32:08] The third audience, those who are considering you. This is where your unique selling point comes in. And this is where you try to make sure that they find exactly what they're looking for in your product.
[00:32:20] Those who are ready to buy from you. Your goal is to be available. Your goal is to make life easy for them to actually buy from you, those who are buying from you. Your purpose is to make the journey pleasurable. Your goal is to keep them informed, keep them in the loop, have your communication right. And finally, those who bought from you, your goal is to keep in touch. Those are the six audiences. This is the first thing that you have to know about marketing.
[00:32:53] However you do it, whatever acronyms, whatever frameworks, whatever knowledge you use from here and on, this is the first thing that you have to know about marketing. So let's summarize. What I just described with these audiences here can often be explained as a funnel. You have the largest number of people in the general public, and then obviously you have the smallest number in people in audience.
[00:33:17] In people in the audience. From those who bought from you. You can call it a funnel, you can call it a bucket, you can call it whatever you want. Some people are just so much against the term funnel.
[00:33:29] Call it however you wish. This is the breakdown of your audience potential in existing. Of course, as a business owner, you're going to have suppliers, you're going to have other types of stakeholders, such as country, any regulating body, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:33:44] But those are the key audiences of people that will potentially buy your product.
[00:33:51] If you craft your marketing strategy or your business strategy by focusing on passing people through the different stages, so getting them to know that you exist, getting them to care that you exist, then getting them to the next stage where they are considering you, then getting them to the stage of ready to buy, then getting them to the stage of buying all the ways moving them to a customer who has already bought from you. If you focus on getting people through these stages and optimizing each one of those stages as an individual step of the process, you will progress in your marketing and you will start seeing some truly positive results.
[00:34:34] But if you look at your marketing activities and you have no clue why you're doing. Whatever it is that you're doing, you will quickly need to reassess.
[00:34:44] Let me say something here which you will hear me repeat many, many times down the line. Marketing is not a sprint. It's not a sprint.
[00:34:54] Going viral is something that happens rarely. So marketing is not a sprint. Marketing is a marathon. It's about compound improvements. Not compound interest, but compound improvements and how much these compound improvements are going to get you better day after day after day. So don't focus on running a sprint. Don't focus on getting this massive, incredible viral video or blog post or advertising or whatever it is. Don't focus on getting one grand sale. Focus on making small, incremental improvements to your strategy, to your process, to the stages that these audience are going through, and you are going to see amazing results.
[00:35:43] I hope this helps put everything into perspective and allows you to simplify it in your mind.
[00:35:49] Please do not be afraid to call bullshit on someone who is trying to tell you that it's any more complicated than that. Let them work on their complications and move on with compound improvements. I promise you that they work better than compound interest.
[00:36:06] If you found this interesting, please go over to successfulstarup.com and sign up for our newsletter where you will get to hear about the next episodes on this podcast and you will get a can I say that shit ton of valuable information in future episodes. I look forward to seeing you there. My name is Nina Alexander and it was a pleasure. See you next time.
