6 Marketing Promotion Tips For the Early Entrepreneur

Promoting is the soil in which sales grow. It doesn't matter how great your product or service is, if no-one knows you exist.

Get excellent and being the hype man/woman of your business.

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Transcript

INTRO (00:00):

You've spent months preparing for your launch. Your product is fantastic! Everyone you've sold it to so far is obsessed with it. The grand opening is finally here. Drums rolling please. Doors fly, open and …crickets. Literally you can hear the crickets. You did everything and forgot to do the most important thing. Stay tuned.

Welcome to Reinventing Perspectives, the show, that's all about wealth creation through a, What Would Jesus Do? (WWJD) Lens. If you're an entrepreneur and you love Jesus, then this is the place for you. We are going to be looking at eternal principles to inspire us to the next level where we create wealth and make an impact. Are you ready for the power of a kingdom perspective? 

Thank you for tuning in, without wasting any more time, let's get to it.

Thank you again for listening in I'm your host Priscilla Shumba and today's episode is a follow-up talk episode on “How to Sell with Integrity”.

(00:55):

If you missed it, do you check it out? It has tons of nuggets. Today's episode is about promotions. Being the hype man or hype woman of your business. 

Now, before we get into promotions, let's take a step back and talk about our marketing mix. We want to make sure that the structures of our marketing mix are sound enough to make our promotions as effective as they can be. 

What is our marketing mix? Our marketing mix is comprised of the 4 Ps: Product Price Place, and Promotion. Our marketing mix is defined by our target audience. We want to be as specific as possible because we're not trying to reach everyone.  Our target audience is simply, the people who have the specific problem that you have sold. 

Let's dive into a four piece, the 1st P of product you always want to ask, how can this product or service be better?

(01:46):

You're basically looking at things like your user experience. Who's using your product, what are they using it for, where are they using it? How are they using it? How are they storing it? How is the packaging? Is it inviting, environmentally friendly? Is it appealing? Is it fun? Those are the questions that you want to look at when you're thinking about improving your product continuously. 

The 2nd P is price. You want to ask what price is my target customer, willing to pay. Remember that price impacts perception. Being too cheap can sometimes make a product, seem like it's well, not very good, but at the same time being too expensive and your customer may not be willing to invest the amount of money that you're asking. So you have to really understand your target audience to price in a way that reflects what your customer is willing to pay.

(02:36):

The 3rd P is place, how accessible is your product or service to a target customer? Is it easy for them to find? 

And the 4th P is promotion. And today we're going to be talking about promotion. 

If you're a new musician or relatively new musician, and you just show up in town and start selling tickets for your show that night, chances are you're going to end up singing to10 people of which you'll know all 10 people. You have to do some promoting. The job of the promoter is to let people know who you are, what you're about, and your story. If enough people get to know your story, or at least if enough people are curious enough to want to know more about your story, it will make selling your tickets the night of your show that much easier. Philip Kotler says, “the aim of marketing is to reduce the need for selling.”

(03:26):

Now let's get into these six tips for promotions:

Tip #1: promotions is all about communicating your story. So being a hype man/hype woman is about being an effective communicator. You want to be able to tell your story in a compelling and yet true way. Develop the skills to persuade, to influence, and to excite people about your offering. Entrepreneur  and bestselling author Gary Vaynerchuk says, “the number one advice I have is to communicate, learn how to communicate.”  There's so many great programs out there to help us to develop our communication skills. One of which is Toastmasters. Make a conscious effort to improve your communication skills. It will pay off in a huge way. 

Let's go back to the basics. The 50 /50 rule: spend 50% of your time improving the offering of your core business. Spend the other 50% of your time promoting. A good tip for this, on your visual board for your weekly plan, divide your board in half. On the one side, put all the things that you need to get done that have to deal with running the business.

(04:38):

And on the other side, put all the activities that you're going to do that have to do with promoting. This way you can visually see that you're spending 50% of your time on the offering of your core business and spending the other 50% of your time on promoting. The idea that execution ends at the end of production is totally wrong. It doesn't matter how great your product is or how great your service is if no one knows that it exists. Seth Godin says, “marketing is no longer about the stuff you make, but about the stories that you tell.”

Tip # 2: You don't have to try and reinvent the wheel just put some rims on it. Let's take the pressure off. You don't have to come up with a promotion that's out of this world creative. If it's been done, it's a mouse click away. Do your homework, research.

(05:29):

It'll save you money and more importantly time, by shortening the learning curve. Ecclesiastes 1: 9 says, “What has been will be again. And what has been done will be done again. There is nothing new under the sun.” Go online and do your research about promotional ideas. Then have a list of ideas. Entrepreneur and hedge fund manager James Altucher says, “Make sure that you set aside time in your week, block out time for coming up with promotional ideas.  Before you know it you'll become an ideas machine.” The other benefit of having a list of ideas is that when you execute these ideas and they don't quite work out the way that we planned, we can go back to the list and try something else. Test your ideas, and if it's not working pivot and try something else. This way we avoid getting frustrated and discouraged just because one thing didn't work.

(06:24):

So when you plan ahead, because we know that's not everything we do will work out. Everything that we do, we will learn from. We are reducing the amount of frustration that we could possibly have. 

Tip # 3: Promotions is a long game. Rome wasn't built in a day. If you're trying to build an empire, it's not going to happen in six months. More importantly, empires are built from the ground up. So rock bottom is the best foundation to build your empire. Proverbs 10: 4 says, “Lazy hands make for poverty, but diligent, hands bring wealth.” Most entrepreneurs aren't fans of marketing, but this is the difference between open doors and permanently closed doors. We have to love telling our story, the life and the death of a business rests on our ability to tell our story, which basically is marketing .

Tip #4, don't do your promotions half way (Half-hearted).

(07:22):

Don't market your business halfway, or you're halfway to being closed. Promote and you can tell your brand story with integrity by positioning yourself as a problem solver. If you're passionate about what you do, being a hype man or hype woman will come naturally Ecclesiastes 2: 24 says, “There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink and find enjoyment to his labor. This too I see is from the hand of God.” Having passion for the work that you do is part of God's gift to us. Gregory Ciotti says, “Marketing is enthusiasm, transferred to the customer.” Isn't that brilliant, marketing is enthusiastic transferred to the customer. Make your passion contagious. That's the definition of being an excellent marketer, making your passion contagious. 

Tip #5: Love the process, love the journey. “People with great passion can make the impossible happen.” Isn't that a great quote.

(08:20):

Passion can keep you going when the odds are against you. And a lot of times the odds will be against you, but the job of an entrepreneur is to persevere. And when you have persevered, you'll be able to get through anything.

Tip # 6: Follow your target audience. Be alert, they are telling you a story. Listen to them and seek constructive criticism. They are telling you exactly what they want. 

How much should you follow your audience? Some people say follow them across all the platforms or the social media platforms and every where you can be present. But unless you have an entire marketing department that is dedicated to that, it's kind of hard to do. So I would say, be where you will make the most effective communication. The more you work on your promotions, the better you'll be at telling your story. So don't give up, learn quickly from your mistakes and refine the way you tell your story.

(09:15):

While staying true to your story. And remember, promotions is the soil in which sales are made.

A quick recap: develop your story and develop your communication. Be a communicator. Research promotional ideas, and have a long list of ideas to implement. Have a long term view about promoting. Don’t think it's going to happen overnight, and then go all in. Love the process. Passion is contagious. Transfer your enthusiasm for your business to your customer and then be aware, your target audience is telling you a story. Proverbs 16: 3 says, “Commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established.” Keep finding joy in your work and keep telling everyone you know about the joy you found in your work. 

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Until next time, stay safe.