In this BRILLIANT post 😉 on Effective Marketing on a Shoestring Budget, Part THREE:

1) The Three Most Important Words in marketing;
2) The Master Key to Creating Value;
3) An advanced “local marketing” example of the Shotgun/Laser Principle I revealed in Effective Marketing on a Shoestring Budget, Part ONE.

Marketers Are Paying Attention to the Wrong Things

In this day and age of PPC, Twitter, Facebook, Google+… Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr… shall I go on? Adwords, SEO, WordPress, LinkedIn, Slideshare, Webinars, Aweber, YouTube…

…yada yada yada…

…it’s easy to get distracted by all the BS (that’s Bright, Shiny 😉 ) objects and forget the REAL basics of business.

As I’ve said elsewhere on this blog, all the above platforms are simply vehicles. They aren’t marketing, they are WAYS to USE marketing.

Almost all of the marketing principles that I teach on this blog were learned PRE-internet; they worked ‘back in the day’ with direct mail, sign ads, print ads. These principles work today with all the wonderful tools that the internet and social media have given us. And they’ll work TOMORROW with the Next Big New Thang comes along.

To really get ahead, then… we’ll have to go backwards a bit. Rediscover the roots. Uncover the lost ‘mysteries’ of HOW to market. And then apply those principles today and forever, using whatever medium makes the most sense.

The Three Most Fundamental Things About Marketing

Want piles upon piles of cash? Pay attention…

The most important words for you to learn and NEVER forget: the Market, the Message, and the Medium.

Most folks go about establishing their on- or off-line business the wrong way.

They begin bass-ackwards, saying “Oooh, I’d better learn Pinterest” or some such nonsense. “That way I can show pictures of my widgets.”

Phooey.

Not that there is anything wrong with Pinterest. You’ll see a sharing button at the end of THIS page. But Pinterest is only the Medium. It’s a way to communicate with other human beings.

Nothing wrong with widgets, either. But a lot of folks come up with the widget before they identify WHO might be interested in buying the fool things.

The most important, first and fundamental thang about MARKET-ing is the MARKET.

Duh.

In case we’ve forgotten, “The Market” is the group of people that you can identify as having certain values or common interests.

The Market

When most folks talk about pursuing their passion and turning it into a business, they stop at the first and most obvious benefit: the fact that being passionate about something gives them boundless energy to work at something for hours without pay… so that they can one day charge for their work.

Like I said… that’s obvious. Mm, cliche, even. 

The “lifestyle business” mantra: be passionate about something, work at it, become a world class rock star at it… get paid.

The fact that work at something hard and get good at it when you perceive it as play is self-evident. 

Identifying your target market begins by identifying with your target market; you know what keeps them up at night.

The less obvious benefit about being passionate about something is the deep and personal insight it gives one into the problems and practicals of that particular pursuit.

That’s me, grabbing 2 points for a head kick at a recent tournament in Alamosa, CO. Smiling while fighting is my ‘secret weapon’ 😉

For example, my being a martial arts competitor at 45 years of age gives me intimate knowledge into the pains of an aging athlete’s preparation for combat sports.

Getting my body to perform stuff at 45 that I learned at age fifteen is no mean feat; I have to keep limber, relaxed, and execute technique with a pretty cool head… sometimes while fighting  opponents half my age.

Performing at this level, at this age,  is the problem.

The exact mental and physical prep routine I use is the practical.

Because I am passionate about martial arts, I’m able to connect with other martial artists and instantly have rapport with them because we both face the same kinds of problems.

And when the time comes that I have a solution to offer them… they know, like, and trust me. Because, well… I’ve been in their shoes. Or out of ’em; most martial arts are practiced barefoot 😉

Identifying your target market begins by identifying with your target market; you know what keeps them up at night. When you find the solution to your own pain, you find the solution to the pains of others. Knowing your MARKET… those people that share a particular set of interests, ideas, or problems… is the first and never-wavering principle of marketING.

Solve a problem for yourself first, then share it; this is the Master Key of Creating Value.

The Message

Once we find solutions, the next step is to craft a message about it.

Notice I said, craft a message. There is a particular way to present useful information to your target audience. WHAT particular way? Well, it varies with the audience, of course. You’ll have to see what others in your space are doing that works. begin there. Then begin branching out and testing other approaches as well.

Perhaps the best way to know how to reach others in your space is to think about the last solution YOU got or bought, and retrace steps to see how THAT came about.

Marketing is not one size-fits-all.

HOWEVER..! The one central component of EVERY marketing message should be this:

The Unique Selling Proposition.

Your USP is the ONE thing that separates you from everyone else in your space.

Think about it… if you and all your competitors offer pretty much the same thing, you are in a ‘commodity’ business. The name of the game in commodities is to offer your goods or services at the lowest price possible.

That’s a LOSING proposition in any industry… making it cutthroat, unfriendly, fiercely competitive and ultimately, unprofitable. Not the kinds of ways I prefer to do business.

The usual way people market is this:

“We’re the BEST!” or;

“We have the lowest PRICE!”

Phooey again. Everyone says that stuff. It’s an expected, “salesy” message and it commits the first mortal sin of marketing by making you predictable.

Even WORSE: it makes you  forgettable.

Hat tip to master marketer Dan Kennedy for the following, BRILLIANT observations…

Your Unique Selling Proposition

I’m willing to bet money that this line is memorable enough that you’ll know the company it goes with right away:

“When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight!”

Hmm. FedEx, right? You got it. No mention of price in there, BTW. They haven’t commoditized themselves; they’ve made themselves the only company that can solve your particular problem.

How ’bout this one?

“Hot, fresh pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less, or it’s FREE!”

Didja guess Domino’s? You guessed right. Again, notice that there is no claim of high quality… only that it will be fresh, hot, and THERE in half an hour or less.

Domino’s may have gotten away from their original USP but they were built on it.

How about YOU, dear fellow Stepper? Can you describe what is different about the service YOU provide, or the problem that YOUR product solves, in about a dozen words or so?

Simple Says It Best

Your Unique Selling Point doesn’t have to be fancy or overstated. My son and I started a small service business (that recently had its first $500 profit day) with a simple, four-word USP.

In our community of Colorado Springs, there are just a few hardware stores that will still repair a torn screen door. Even so, the homeowner has to jimmy it out of the track himself… take the door to the store in his truck (or a borrowed truck)… wait 7-10 days for the hardware store to call him back… come pick it up, pay for it, take it out to the (maybe borrowed) truck again and jam it back into the track at home.

Phew.

Or..! Check THIS for a Unique Selling Point:

“We come to you.”

Our hero, the homeowner need not fuss with all that. Courtesy of our USP he knows he can call my son or me, set an appointment… and fifteen minutes after we arrive write us a phat check for $45.

Done.

Problem solved.

For you math nerds out there, the material expense for replacing the fabric in a screen door is just under $4. With more than one screen door in many homes, and good planning as to scheduling homes all in the same zip code… it’s easy to see how Pierce and I got a $500 profit day recently.

Quoting Dale Gribble: Sh-sh-sha! 😎

Finally… The Medium

SO it’s certainly evident that we need to identify a group of people with a need, and we need to tailor our message to address that need. NOW we are ready to tackle Pinterest, or PPC, or YouTube, or blogging or WHATEVER… to reach our market.

But what Medium to choose?

Simple. If you know your Market and your Message, the Medium will present itself.

Yes, certainly you may want to try all the different ways… even the Newest Big Thang… to reach your Market with your Message.

But I have two crazy ideas:

1) Don’t go broke or crazy trying them all at once.

2) Spend 80% of your time, resources and energy doing what WORKS ALREADY for your Market, and the other 20%  testing other Messages and Mediums.

Ask the following questions:

Where does my Market gather?

How is it being reached already?

How many ways can my Message be delivered?

Can I use the Shotgun/Laser Principle to refine my methods?

Can I use “Psycho”graphics to approach the Market in an unexpected, lower-competition manner?

Ask better questions, get better answers.

My Most Recent Application of the Shotgun/Laser Principle

So back to the ‘local business’ example and my son’s and my mobile screen repair biz for a moment.

Most of the folks we get calls from are homeowners. They have seen our USP “We come to YOU!” on our Facebook page, our Google Plus page, a roadside sign, whatever… they call us, we come to the work, we save their address and send them a thank-you card. Done deal.

But SOME of our calls have come from real estate professionals. Builders, landlords, fix-and-flippers, property management companies.

The real estate gang have come to be our most ‘preferred customers.’

Realtors tell their clients to call us for a cheap facelift. Builders have us come on-site and build piles of screens in an assembly-line setup.  And property managers call and drop nine jobs on us at once. It’s AWESOME.

So the “Shotgun” approach makes us money from a lot of little fish… and every once in a while we get a shark caught in our net. One local property management company has sent us four thousand dollars worth of business. Happy time.

Laser, Baby!

So what if there were some way to get a list of all the real estate related businesses in a particular geographic area. Oh wait… here we go:

Melissadata.com is one of my favorite sources of marketing data.

Here I got me a list of ALL the real estate and real estate-related companies in zip code 80920.

Plus their addresses.

And some of their phone numbers.

Wow, cost dang near six bucks too 🙂

Aww, lookee. How thoughtful of them to accept PayPal.

So for all 57 real estate-related businesses’ names and addresses I’ve spent $5.56.

Next we’ll upload the comma-separated values data to my SendOutCards account. That will shoot 57 postcards in my handwriting (topic of another post guys, you gotta see this) at a cost of about a buck apiece.

Now each of them are gonna get a postcard with our Unique Selling Proposition on it;

“We Come To You.”

If even ONE of them takes my follow-up phone call, or calls me first…

…and if that one does only HALF the business that Brunk and Brunk has with us…

That would be about another two thousand dollars’ worth of biz just for a couple hours’ work.

I think it’s worth it 😉

Okay Steppers! Would love to hear your thoughts on this ‘pillar’ post, Effective Marketing on a Shoestring Budget Part THREE. We covered:

1) The Three Most Important Words in marketing;
2) The Master Key to Creating Value;
3) An advanced “local marketing” example of the Shotgun/Laser Principle I revealed in Effective Marketing on a Shoestring Budget, Part ONE.

Awright let’s stretch those fingers Steppers! Your comments come next. Love to hear from ya.

Keep Stepping,

Kurt