Social Media Marketing Consultants & Experts for Hire

You can’t look at an article on marketing today without the message- Know your target market.

Know what they need, their pain points. Know them as a persona. Interview them in real life.

Know where they visit online, know who they trust, know what they like, what they’ve tried, who they want to impress, etc, etc, etc.

I myself push this, because the more you know your audience (or potential client) the more specific you can be in marketing and the more likely you are to be successful doing what you do.

But there is a problem here, markets are saturated with products, content and off the top of our head solutions.

For instance, someone who sells t-shirts, their target audience is someone who needs a shirt (on the most basic level), that’s most of the world.

But, there has to be more, something that can set the company apart from others, and be beneficial to the buyer.For instance, a graphic t-shirt buyer

• Is trendy, and likes to have people comment on what they wear
• Likes to be comfortable and look casual
• Shows off their personality, their likes and what they support
• Isn’t worried about having clothes to wear
• Isn’t poor or lacking the money to represent themselves
• Isn’t an executive on their way to work
• Goes to concerts and likes music
• Is an individual with real thoughts and feelings
• Is passionate about certain causes
• Likes to share their support

Of course, we can go on and on, but in a nutshell these are some of the properties describing a graphic t-shirt buyer.

This goes a little beyond the persona we are taught to target, and shares the inner thoughts of a person so that we might understand their objectives in life and in buying a graphic t-shirt.

What I See In Marketing

Even as we know this information about someone we hope to sell to, many marketing campaigns are barely hitting the tip of the iceberg when using blogging, social media and other digital marketing methods to advertise their products.

We use blogs to share fun information about the company and people behind our products and services, to teach visitors about how a product or service can change a life, but isn’t there more to it?

For instance, I’m using my blog to discuss content marketing, blogging, social media and content distribution. In the end though, I’m not much different than any other blogger with the same topics in mind.

Luckily, there is enough market share to go around, but couldn’t I do better, couldn’t we all?

 Jay Baer- Youtility

When I first read Youtility I thought Jay Baer had a point. We should be useful to our marketing- simple enough, provide loads of information on our blogs, push content marketing to the max, etc.

But the one thing I kept coming back to was the Clean Bathroom app. I’m providing value and content but my giveaways and information are nothing compared to an application that tells travelers where they can go to the bathroom in a clean place.

Neither are my efforts as simple and yet extremely useful as Taxi Mike’s list of near by places to visit. – Where do they come up with this stuff?

As I look around, I see very few who are coming up with their own out-of-the-box potty apps or lists of useful information.

A great marketing campaign in social media, blogging and content, or anywhere is much more than supplying adequate information, or acceptable entertainment- can’t we do more?

Most of us are writing content that is there to help potential clients with what we see as their most immediate need, but all of our competitors are doing the same thing.

We think- what does my client need? For me that would be more leads, more sales, more donations, etc.That covers every marketing and advertising person and agency in the world, my guesstimate thousands of people.

How do I compare? What do I or can I provide that my competitors do not?

Here is how some find their success with content marketing:

A Story- Storytelling encapsulates people, it grabs at their heart strings and motivates them. A good story takes them out of their day-to-day routine and makes them forget what they were doing before they started reading or watching.

For marketing purposes, in the end it gets people to want or need products and services you offer, and feel good about it.

Including Others- User generated content is priceless, Angieslist, Craigslist, Youtube and many others are prime examples of how we congregate together to see what others are saying and doing- this is social media to a T, it’s the reason I visit Facebook daily and use Twitter and Linkedin for my business content distribution.

I want to feel connected to others, be nosey about what they are saying and doing and meet others with common interests.

With the Charmin app, we all need a clean place to go, and everyone who contributes helps others stay clean- nice!

Going Deeper- This is where I hope to focus my future marketing campaigns, going deeper into the thoughts of my potential client and resonating with a need they have where others are not focusing. This is what was being done with the Charmin Clean Bathroom App.

Everyone who needs to buy toilet paper needs to go to the bathroom and I can’t think anyone wouldn’t rather have a clean place to do so. Not only that, but this example also picks up on the idea of including others, make others feel important by allowing them to contribute and be part of a community- Smart stuff!

How can you use this information? Hopefully I’m not so new to marketing that my advice can’t be helpful, instead of just copying others and seeing acceptable results, it’s time to embrace the risk of marketing and produce amazing results that leave your company standing alone, commanding your industry.

My Challenge

Over the next few months I am going to keep blogging about social media, content, blogging, distribution, etc. But I’d also like to share more about my adventures in marketing for myself and my clients beyond what I currently have. I’d like to invite others along with me to use creativity, research, deeper knowledge of our potential clients, and a bit of risk to do more, be impressive with our marketing and produce results like we’ve only seen from gurus.

Are you up for it?

Stay tuned, I’ll post a new blog about it every two weeks.