If you’re thinking of hiring a marketing service provider or maybe even running ads, you want to be sure that your investments of time and money are well worth it. In this article, we’ll cover the three things that you need to be clear about before you hire anyone to do your marketing. These three areas of focus will allow you to craft messaging and offers that help you to stand out online so your marketing is effective and attracts ideal-fit customers to your business. In turn, this will allow you to make a bigger impact with your work and help more of the people you want to serve.
Pinpoint Your Difference
The first thing to do before you invest money with a marketing services provider, a virtual assistant, or even running ads is to get super clear about the value that you create for your niche audience.
- What is your unique zone of genius?
- What meaningful work will you produce?
- How can you create a transformation for those individuals you’re looking to serve?
With answers to the above, you can craft messaging that truly helps you to stand out online and attract the right people to your services. Otherwise, your content will likely sound a lot like most of the people in your industry, and get drowned out by all of the other competitors online.
If you feel like the marketing that you’ve done up to now is similar to the majority of your competitors, then now is NOT the time to invest in marketing services or running ads. Clarify the authentic contribution you can make by utilizing your innate skills, interests, passions and purpose. Then move on to the next step.
Develop Your Offer
Next, be sure to clarify the unique transformation or journey that you can take people on in order to arrive at the outcomes that they’re looking for when they hire you.
You may have a menu of services that you provide. This is not the same as having an offer. An offer is your unique process to arrive at one specific outcome, produced in a specific timeline and geared for a specific type of client. You may have experienced people coming to you for services thinking they need “X” service in order to reach their goal, but in reality, they may not be entirely clear on what it takes to arrive at the goal. So if you have an offer or a process to get people to their intended outcome, then you can guide them through every step that they need to take in order to actually achieve it.
Pitfalls of Piecemeal Service Solutions
Our customers are not experts at what we do. They have a limited understanding and may believe they need a piecemeal solution when what they need is a full-service experience. This results in sub-par outcomes and unhappy clients.
However, when you create an offer with a structured, big-picture process, not only will it help you to stand out online with your marketing, but you will also get better outcomes for your clients. This means they will be happier and more likely to spread the word about your services. This, in turn, builds word of mouth for your business and looks great as case studies and testimonials for your website and your marketing.
Create High-Value Content
Finally, before you invest in marketing services or ads, get clear about the content you’ll create that adds value to people’s lives. Without this, your marketing service provider will end up simply promoting your services all of the time and those efforts will be ignored by your intended audience.
Sales-first marketing often stems from a lack of clarity about your audience, their challenges, and their emotional needs. It also comes from a lack of clarity about your unique difference, the transformation that you would like to provide, and the unique process you use to provide that transformation.
Effective marketing content follows two simple principles:
- Solve problems for your audience and …
- Shift their mindsets in a way that’s going to get them on the path toward reaching the goals that your services can help them to achieve.
Once you consistently produce content that people like, share, comment on and DM you about, then it’s time to hire a marketing services provider, virtual assistant, or ads manager to increase your marketing production in a way that will bring leads and customers to your business.
What to Do Next
If you’re unsure about how to clarify your unique difference and develop offers and marketing that are aligned with your zone of genius, passion, and purpose, then book a complimentary Profit Plan call. We will pinpoint areas in your business where you can focus to get the best results from your marketing.
