March 19, 2024

Sales and Marketing Advice for Florida business

Building better brand awareness for your business

Ron Stein | 6/16/2014

The business you are seeking is seeking you. There is little doubt that people are looking for what your company offers. Prospective customers are on the hunt.

It's simple, your target market has a problem and your business solves it brilliantly and cost-effectively. Your product rocks!

But, you're hiding and no one knows who you are. Or cares.

You've made it this far because you were willing to take your best game directly to your audience. Networking — check. Cold calls and unsolicited emails — check. Mining social networks and responding to specific requests for information — check and check.

However, when contact is first made you get a bit of chilly reception. People have never heard of your company, product, or service and it takes a great initial message to get them to listen. Once they warm up things start rolling.

Sure, you've made sales this way. It just seems to take more effort than you'd like. Plus, you're not really growing business nearly as much as you should.

If only you had a brand that people recognized. Or, at least a marketing ground game to support your outbound approach. You know — to attract the targeted prospects that are easier to sell to, improve the efficiency of your sales process, and increase closing rates.

Your brand needs content marketing.

Why? Because buyers hate risk and don't immediately trust companies that are trying to "sell" them. People will trust businesses that demonstrate they've got the best interest of their audience at heart.

Solid, relevant content educates your audience and showcases your expertise. Here's how you can win the battle for your buyer's attention and achieve your demand generation and sales conversion goals.

Find your unique voice. Get creative, use humor, and set the bar high. Don't shout — listen and engage in two-way conversations. To cultivate stronger and deeper relationships with your prospects go beyond just pumping out content. Prove that your company not only has deep knowledge of your products, but an intense understanding of the issues that affect your buyer. Give your voice a boost with a consistent look that flows across your presentations, blog, social media, white papers, and ebooks. Make it obvious that you're different and you'll rise above the competition.

You talking to me? Most companies do a good job building a profile of their ideal customers based on demographics. But, that's not good enough. A deeper understanding requires research of what buyers are trying to accomplish and how they think, what goals drive their behavior, why they make buying decisions, how they buy and where they buy, as well as when. Not only will this information help you make informed decisions on content marketing and sales strategies, it'll be critical in developing your unique voice.

Put your buyers at the center of marketing conversations. Now that you're not guessing at who is devouring all of that wonderful content, develop a narrowcast mindset. Don't be afraid to focus on a smaller audience of high quality prospective customers. Create a persona of the specific buyer your business helps and gets results for. Keep drilling down until your content is able to clearly speak to that person. The better you can determine the special wants and needs of your audience, the more you can help them solve their problems and become a trusted source. That's how a marketing conversation starts and leads to a profitable following — building a strong brand presence along the way.

Just because today's digital tools allow you to create a ton of content and do it faster, doesn't mean you should. Particularly when it's not great content.

Narrowly focused and relevant content is great content. Satisfy your defined audience's demand for only the content they seek.

When you create content that targets the right buyer persona and fills a gap in their journey, you will position your brand as a leader. You'll drive demand for your information and deliver quality lead generation. And, you'll influence the decision-making process. Oh, and the search engines will love you.

Not too shabby!


Ron Stein is President of FastPath Marketing (www.marketing-strategies-guide.com) and the author of the Rapid Impact Marketing & Selling Playbook. As a speaker, coach, and consultant he works with small business owners helping them to accelerate the path between their vision and the actions needed to reach, win, and keep customers. Ron is the creator of the FastPath to More Customers Now! 7-step marketing system based on more than twenty years as a successful business owner, corporate CEO, business development executive, and salesman. He is also a mentor at two nationally recognized business accelerators. Ron offers one-on-one and small group mentoring, conducts seminars, and consults. He can be reached at 727-398-1855 or Ron@FastPathMarketing.com.

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