Getting Clear on Your Offer and Marketing Message - Shorty EP #90

Howdy guys. Tuesday, 19th May, week 21 of 2020.

Just checking in for this week's Shorty and today I wanted to talk about the importance of marketing, especially now as things are starting to open up again. It's a great time to get your marketing under control.

As always. We came for our weekly group coaching call with the accelerator clients and we really did a workshop today which I'll share a bit about with you. Just a minute.

So we've been focusing a lot of our effort recently on marketing within our community and that's because really there hasn't been a more important time to market your video business than there is right now.

You know, a lot of people have been out of work, which has been tough, but that gives you time and time is something we don't typically have a lot of spare if we're out busy filming and doing post. So, you know, if you've never done any marketing, then now is a really good time to start thinking about that. You know, for a long time a lot of businesses have just relied on word of mouth. That's how I came up through the industry, word of mouth marketing. It's like, you know, someone recommends you, you get a job, someone else recommends you. It's just not enough anymore to just rely on word of mouth and referrals. Referrals are still a great source of business, but if you want to grow and really come out of this whole pandemic stronger, then now is the time to start doing your marketing. You know, there's, there's a marketing lag. If you do 30 days of marketing now, you might not see the results for another 60 or 90 days, but in 60 or 90 days time, you're going to start getting really busy. And what typically happens is when videographers, filmmakers get busy, they stop marketing. And what happens is that lag then follows on. So if you don't market for a month, in 60 or 90 days time, you're going to find yourself without any clients and any prospects. And so it's really important that you start to think about, you know, who it is you want to market to.

And what you're offering the market and what outcome you help them achieve. And this is something that typically you probably never had to deal with before in your video business. And you know, I don't have a crystal ball, so I don't know what's going to happen in the future. But what I can say is getting real clarity on your marketing message, real clarity on who you want to target and real Clarity on the outcomes you help them achieve is going to set you apart from 95% of the, of the other videography companies out there.

It's just, you know, these crises that the crisis we've been facing recently, it is going to thin out the hard a little bit. And so if you're someone who's just kind of hopeful that things will get back to normal, I'm here to say that they probably won't. So what can you do about it? Remember, only. Only work on areas you can control and not things you can't. We can't control how quickly this virus gets under control. We can't control the rules and regulations that our governments have imposed on us restricting travel. But what we can influence is what we do with our time. And so, you know, what I'm observing is those people that are putting the work in to figure out their target audience, to figure out what their offer is, and to figure out how their solution actually benefits the end user. They're going to do very well. You know, I've got to say, my members on the whole are smashing it. And it's not because they're exceptionally talented. I mean, they are. But it's because we follow a very consistent approach to marketing, to getting together every week, to making sure. Like today, for example, we were working on something called a marketing equation, which is just a kind of a way of solidifying each target market into its own vertical and coming up with a very short sentence that describes who you help, how you help them, and what outcome they're going to achieve. And a couple of the guys this morning were just like, my God, this is amazing. Like, how quickly this has solidified what they do and who they do it for. And this acts as an anchor, it acts as a foundation for the rest of your marketing efforts. So when you start to look at advertising and paid advertising, your messaging becomes very clear. All too often I see websites online and the expression is the we all over themselves. We this, we that, we're passionate, we're storytellers, blah, blah, blah. And like, the thing is, no one actually really cares other than the filmmakers themselves. And that might be a tough thing to listen to. And you could be sitting there shouting at the speaker, going, well, what do you know, Dan? The fact is, we work with businesses who get results and we work with clients who hire those businesses again and again because they get results. It depends on the client. And some clients may want super creative. Most of them actually don't. They want consistency, they want reliability, they want ease and they want certainty. And so what's really important is you've got to be very clear on who it is you are targeting. Who is the person who's got a problem that you can solve and what is the language that's going to have them say, ah, yeah, those guys get it. They are exactly who I'm looking for. That sounds like I need to speak to them. And then you frame your marketing equation in such a way that it builds curiosity, it builds a sense of intrigue where someone goes, yeah, that sounds like me. That sounds like the kind of outcome I want, I want to know more. And that's why we create a marketing equation. It's not enough to just go on and start throwing money at Facebook or Google or YouTube because if you're not clear on your message and you're targeting, then you're really going to struggle. And last week we talked a bit about the five levels of customer awareness. Eugene Schwartz and I got the date wrong. It wasn't in the 1920s, it was 1960s. He wrote this book called Breakthrough Advertising. You can still buy this book but it's like it's US$125. You know, it's come down in price a bit. Actually there weren't many, weren't many around. And he talks about the five levels of customer awareness. And you can Google it but you know, if someone's completely unaware of your service or unaware they've even got a problem, you're going to struggle to sell anything. You want to move people through a process where they become aware they have a problem that has a need to be solved. And once that need has been established, only then will they perh, start looking at specific solutions of which your offer may be one. But really, you know, you want to be selling to people when they are very aware they've got a problem, they're aware there's a solution and now choosing between maybe a couple of solutions. And in the ideal scenario you want to be the only solution. And that's what marketing does. Marketing moves people through different phases, phases of awareness levels till they get to a point where you are the only person there going to call. And that's why we run our mastermind group because we're constantly talking about this and constantly sharing. And on today's call, I think we had about 11 people on the call today and every person had a, had a marketing equation that we then refined. So it really was like a kind of seminar workshop where we actually worked on each and everyone's individual marketing equations. And everyone walked away kind of like pumped, ready to kind of take to the next level. So that's really why getting clear on your marketing message is so important. And, and my advice to you is make it about the person you're serving, not about you. The more you can make it outcome focused, the better it will be. And of course, this is just the, the very tip of the iceberg when it comes to marketing, because once you've got your marketing equation and you've identified your target market, then we need to look at messaging and understand what are the problems that the market are experiencing and start creating campaigns to answer each and every one of those problems. And it's, I absolutely love it. I love marketing. I think it's the, the most kind of highest level of service. You know, you want to understand someone's problem and come up with a solution, a way to articulate that problem and that solution so that they automatically assume you are the authority that they want to work with. And it's exciting to watch my members embrace this and see incredible results. In fact, one of the guys just last week took even a very rough version of his marketing equation and used it on a few people and had a bunch of inquiries. And really that's what it's all about. It's about helping you to make your life easier through systems. You know, the marketing equation is just yet another system. And I'm excited. I'm gonna get Dave Jennings back on the podcast shortly. He's just finishing off his brand new book and I had the opportunity to read it last week and it's brilliant, it's mind blowing, and I'm a huge fan of anything systems because it just does make your life easier. And what that enables you to do is be more creative. And ultimately that's all we really want, is to be more creative. So, guys, I've got the second part of Little Grey Box coming out on Thursday, but until then, see you then.

You've been listening to the how to Scale a Video Business podcast with me, your host, Den Lenny. If you're a video business owner who's hit a ceiling and we benefit from mentorship, support and coaching, then check out how you can work with me over@denlenny.com. don't forget to subscribe and rate the show over on itunes.

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