The Number 1 Principle in Marketing to Pierce Through the Noise

 

There are a lot of blogs (and opinions) about how you should market.

 

But at the end of the day, you don’t want to think like a marketer. You want to think like a human. I think we’re tired of being marketed to as humans. I mean, aren’t you??

 

But I’m not tired of finding really cool people who seem genuine and add value to my life.

 

That’s the goal of your marketing. It’s becoming the only way to earn your way past the filters.

 

And so in this video I outline the number one principle in marketing if you want a business that really connects with your target market… and that principle is relationship.

 

You want to market for relationship, not the sale.

 

“Say what?!? How does that make sense?”

 

If people really want or need what you sell, the time will come when they buy. But the way for you to earn their trust isn’t by selling but by adding value. You need to get “upstream” from the point of sale in your marketing so people can learn from you, grow to trust you and actually enjoy who you are as a human.

 

I’m not saying there won’t be a time when you invite them to content specific to what you sell. That’s exactly what I coach my clients to. But I also coach them to build massive connection by focusing on relationships and not the transaction.

 

Let me ask you a question… Would you rather have more competition or less competition?

 

When you build relationship upstream from the point of sale, there’s no competition. Your competitors are all fighting for the low hanging scraps and it’s tacky. The consumer can smell their own blood in the water and their defense mechanisms are super high.

 

This makes conversion a lot tougher.

 

But when you have relationship… When you’ve been a safe and valuable person… You earn trust and you earn a spot at the front of the line when they’re ready to buy what you sell. When that moment comes, there’s no competition. You’re the clear choice.

 

But you have to build relationship.

 

Here are 3 tips to get you started on building a massive groundswell of super high-quality leads upstream that trust you.

 

Be genuine.

 

I know this is obvious. It may even be cliche at this point. To me, the best way to capture your genuineness in content marketing is through interviews. Interviews are super forgiving on the camera and very flexible. You can say “um” and “ah” and you don’t have to edit… because it’s human.

 

Bringing others into an interview also makes the dialogue easy to listen to.

 

Plus interviewing others is just plain smart networking.

 

Be valuable.

 

Value can be in the form of entertainment, connection or knowledge. Let’s assume you’re going to go with the interview format of content, find people to have on your show that can add perspective for your target audience.

 

I recently completed an interview with one of our done-AS-you agency clients who sells real estate in Austin. She shared great information on how to protest your property taxes (which is a thing in Texas). I’m hoping the dialogue had entertainment value (we weren’t cracking jokes, but the exchange keeps it moving). It definitely provided connection because our client is just being herself in the interview. That’s what people want… the want real, not polish. And finally it was super helpful in the knowledge she shared that could save them thousands of dollars a year in property taxes.

 

Be consistent.

 

This may be the hardest one. It’s for sure the most common downfall I run into with busy entrepreneurs. This is exactly why I created the done-AS-you marketing service. My clients were bought into the relationship based marketing but they were just buried in their day to day work. They never got around to it… consistently at least.

 

So what’s consistent? Is that daily? Monthly?

 

Well if you think of your interviews as a “show”, then I like weekly, long-form content. That means a weekly interview that lasts 10-20 minutes.

 

I recommend at a minimum pushing that video to YouTube, Facebook and emailing your database. This is what our Essential Package does (all you do is show up for the interview, we do the rest).

 

If you really want to step it up, it’s still just one interview a week but now push it to LinkedIn and Instagram as well as write a 500 word blog post and create a podcast out of it that you send to Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Google Play. (This is what our Growth Package does - all you have to do is show up for the interviews).

 

What I love about this kind of content is that it is very simple. I like to keep things simple. This kind of content does a LOT of heavy lifting for you in building relationships and it’s highly leveraged.

 

As you evaluate your current chaos around marketing, I would encourage you to start with asking “Does this marketing build relationship, or am I just trying to cherry pick a sale?” Based on what I’ve shared in this post, you’ll know what to do from there.

 

To Your Success,

Chris Angell