Marketing yourself differently

Posted by Jerry Smith · September 24, 2009 · Print This Article

Much of marketing is concerned with getting attention in the first place. For a large corporation there are additional considerations perhaps, more intangible goals such as “building a brand”, but for a small business owner or independent professional, you are often marketing YOU.

Of course, your business is important, as are your services. However you will commonly have at least some level of personal interaction with your clients, and they will be buying you. Everyone is unique of course, so why do so many marketing messages essentially sound the same?

Think about that for a minute. At any networking event 30 second introductions from similar businesses sound very similar. Direct mail ads all seem to have the same message, the only difference being the offer of the moment or the price for the service. Bearing in mind the first goal of marketing, to grab attention, is sounding like all the competition the best way to acheive that?

There are a couple of reasons why this situation comes about:

Safety – it is easier to go with the tried and trusted option. Since you know about your business, and there are plenty of others using the same approach, it is safe to do the same thing.
Focus on you, not them – the assumption that listing services, or talking about what you do will a) be understood by your target market and b) be attractive to them. In many cases neither of these things is true
“Build it and they will come” – getting into a great business is not enough. People will not just find you

So how to change this around and sound different? Before exploring that further, a note of caution. The solution is relatively straightforward, but does require a change in thinking, work, and testing! Anything worthwhile requires this. Beware of going to the opposite extreme with risque material, whacky graphics etc. unless that really fits your business and your marketing plan. Check yesterday’s post for thoughts on how to put together such a plan.

Here is an approach to help you standout and sell your uniqueness:

Address your prospects challenges – you have a great service, but what does that mean to your clients? What challenges are they thinking about and for which they are searching for a solution? You need to be specific about this, and understand what those things are. Don’t assume your prospects will make that jump in reasoning from your list of services – they probably won’t.
Make them think – pattern interrupt. Turn the fact that most messages sound the same to your advantage. When something sounds different, there is no pre-programmed response in most people’s minds, therefore they will naturally pay attention to figure it out. You can do this a number of ways: pose a question, tell a story that is relevant to their challenge, use emotion based language rather than logic based words etc.
But don’t be too cute or cryptic – prospects will be intrigued when your message resonates with things they are dealing with. However if the message is so out there that they don’t have the first idea what you are talking about, there is a good chance they will be confused and just move on. Remember you don’t have a long time available to grab this attention.

In summary, by changing the focus of your message from YOU to YOUR PROSPECTS, specifically what they are dealing with, you will sound different from most others in your niche. It takes some work to figure these things out but the rewards are well worth it. Avoid the temptation to play safe!

Follow me on…