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A lot of beginners on the forum. A lot of lurkers. This post is a little experiment to see if this kind of content is helpful to people...
I think I have to credit Dan Kennedy for introducing me to this idea, although I've read it and variations of it elsewhere. I have been teaching this to people for at least 15 years. I honestly don't know how much of what follows is my thoughts versus things I read.
Okay, so you are a new business owner. Or you at least are thinking about being a business owner.
You're trying to figure out how to market yourself.
I hope to give you a framework to think about and be able to evaluate different marketing tools and tactics. It's called the 3Ms of marketing.
What are the 3 M's?
Market
Medium
Message
If you line these three things up properly, you have a money making machine.
Let's break it down.
Market
Who are you talking to? Who are you trying to reach? Who is it that needs what you're selling?
What do they like? Why are they buying? How old are they? What other demographic information do they have in common? Geography? Family? Single? Rent or own a home?
Marketers will also use this kind of data to talk about a buyer persona. I think that's a pretty good way to look at it.
Whenever I'm creating some marketing strategy, I come up with a buyer persona, or a customer avatar, in my head.
I give them a name. "Suzie". And then I'm marketing to the Suzie's of the world. And I try to imagine as much as I possibly can that sounds realistic about Suzie.
Side note… sometimes your company serves a few different buyer personas. So maybe you have a Sam or a Sapin or a Sonia. That's ok too.
Medium
This is where new entrepreneurs get stuck. There's always a fancy new thing that you JUST HAVE TO DO. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Google, TV ads, programmatic, email, text, sly dial, online TV ads, radio ads, online radio ads, flyers, door hangers, word of mouth…
There are so many mediums out there.
To make money, you just have to be good at 1. But it's got to be the right one.
I think of your business like a table. You could have one big pole that holds up your table. But if that pole breaks, you don't have a table no more.
A table's better with four legs. It's more stable.
So as your business grows, work on adding more legs to it.
To build sustainability, you probably want to have at least 3. This way if one leg gets taken out, you still have at least two other ways to make money.
And going back to the different personas, you might reach a certain kind of person one way, and another kind of person another way.
Message
What in the world do you want to say to these people? I feel like this is pretty straightforward. Copywriting, marketing, these kinds of skills will play a role here.
Do you want to say hey buy my thing? Sometimes that works. Or is your message, sign up for my free gimmick, and overtime I will convince you to buy my thing. That works too.
And maybe I'm stating the obvious, but going back to the personas, you want to make sure you're speaking the language of each individual prospect. In many of my campaigns I'll use different techniques for men or women.
For example, and this is more of a generalization than a hard rule, but I tend to use more concrete numbers if my market is predominantly men, and I tend to use more emotion-based language what if my market is women. But I definitely do a little of both either way.
Another example is my use of !!! In my tests, I have found that if you are targeting people of affluence, even one ! is too many. They lower conversion rate. Meanwhile, if you're targeting people in actual poverty, ! will raise conversion. It is hit or miss for people in the middle. I find it often has no effect. But too many !!! Is also a bad no matter what economic level people are at.
These are general guidelines I use based on my experience. Because I've tested different messages to different audiences. As you grow your business you should always be testing as well. Make sure your tailoring what you're saying to the person you're speaking to.
It's funny, for years I've had two garage door companies as clients. One on the east side of the city and one on the west side of the city. I started off marketing them the exact same, and I took them on within 6 months of each other. But after many years and many iterations, it became pretty clear that one is much better at selling new doors, and the other one is much better at repairs. I've helped them craft the kind of business they want to craft by finding the audience that suits them.
Lining them up
When I meet with a client, they usually know two of the three things.
They usually have a business, so they know what they're selling. They usually tell me what the message is. Since I am a search engine marketer, all I have to do is find out if there are people searching who want to hear the message. The search engine is the medium.
But this works as long as you know any two of the three.
Want to reach fitness enthusiasts on YouTube? Craft a strong enough message and you'll be huge. I've seen any number of quality influencers trying to reach new people getting in shape, experienced people trying to maximize gains, yoga enthusiasts, etc.
I've got a buddy that started by building an audience of middle-aged mostly single men (market) on Facebook (medium). It took him a little bit but he figured it out and started a beard cream business. His revenue today is a healthy seven figures, uses several social media platforms plus email.
But what if you have the product, a strong selling proposition, and you know who needs it? Then it's just a matter of figuring out what the right medium to deliver your messages. Are your people even on YouTube or Google? We can make some assumptions, like tick tockers tend to be younger and Facebookers tend to be older. But would word of mouth or TV advertising be better? Sometimes you test several mediums until you find the right ones for you.
I think where people struggle with marketing is when they only have one of the three.
Man I've got this great idea for a product, but I have no idea who will buy it.
Gosh I really want to help people struggling with divorce, but I have no idea how to help them or reach them.
I'm really really good at TikTok videos or copywriting or graphic design, but I have no idea who needs my service or how I solve an actual problem.
And truth be told, I'd be stuck in those situations too.
We say this on the forum a lot. If you want to start a business ask yourself what is a problem that you can solve that someone will pay you to solve.
If you don't know that, then this article won't help you.
But if you do know that, then here's the next step.
As you're trying to think of what business to build, start thinking in terms of what messages you want to be sending through which mediums to reach what people.
Or, you can take this in reverse.
If I were this person with this problem (remember Suzie), what mediums would I be seeking in order to find a solution? What message(s) would work on me?
Ultimately it's as simple as this, Suzie has a problem, and you need to find a way to send her a message letting her know that you have the solution.
Hopefully this makes marketing a little easier and gets your gears turning and helps you find more of your Suzies or Sams.
I think I have to credit Dan Kennedy for introducing me to this idea, although I've read it and variations of it elsewhere. I have been teaching this to people for at least 15 years. I honestly don't know how much of what follows is my thoughts versus things I read.
Okay, so you are a new business owner. Or you at least are thinking about being a business owner.
You're trying to figure out how to market yourself.
I hope to give you a framework to think about and be able to evaluate different marketing tools and tactics. It's called the 3Ms of marketing.
What are the 3 M's?
Market
Medium
Message
If you line these three things up properly, you have a money making machine.
Let's break it down.
Market
Who are you talking to? Who are you trying to reach? Who is it that needs what you're selling?
What do they like? Why are they buying? How old are they? What other demographic information do they have in common? Geography? Family? Single? Rent or own a home?
Marketers will also use this kind of data to talk about a buyer persona. I think that's a pretty good way to look at it.
Whenever I'm creating some marketing strategy, I come up with a buyer persona, or a customer avatar, in my head.
I give them a name. "Suzie". And then I'm marketing to the Suzie's of the world. And I try to imagine as much as I possibly can that sounds realistic about Suzie.
Side note… sometimes your company serves a few different buyer personas. So maybe you have a Sam or a Sapin or a Sonia. That's ok too.
Medium
This is where new entrepreneurs get stuck. There's always a fancy new thing that you JUST HAVE TO DO. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Google, TV ads, programmatic, email, text, sly dial, online TV ads, radio ads, online radio ads, flyers, door hangers, word of mouth…
There are so many mediums out there.
To make money, you just have to be good at 1. But it's got to be the right one.
I think of your business like a table. You could have one big pole that holds up your table. But if that pole breaks, you don't have a table no more.
A table's better with four legs. It's more stable.
So as your business grows, work on adding more legs to it.
To build sustainability, you probably want to have at least 3. This way if one leg gets taken out, you still have at least two other ways to make money.
And going back to the different personas, you might reach a certain kind of person one way, and another kind of person another way.
Message
What in the world do you want to say to these people? I feel like this is pretty straightforward. Copywriting, marketing, these kinds of skills will play a role here.
Do you want to say hey buy my thing? Sometimes that works. Or is your message, sign up for my free gimmick, and overtime I will convince you to buy my thing. That works too.
And maybe I'm stating the obvious, but going back to the personas, you want to make sure you're speaking the language of each individual prospect. In many of my campaigns I'll use different techniques for men or women.
For example, and this is more of a generalization than a hard rule, but I tend to use more concrete numbers if my market is predominantly men, and I tend to use more emotion-based language what if my market is women. But I definitely do a little of both either way.
Another example is my use of !!! In my tests, I have found that if you are targeting people of affluence, even one ! is too many. They lower conversion rate. Meanwhile, if you're targeting people in actual poverty, ! will raise conversion. It is hit or miss for people in the middle. I find it often has no effect. But too many !!! Is also a bad no matter what economic level people are at.
These are general guidelines I use based on my experience. Because I've tested different messages to different audiences. As you grow your business you should always be testing as well. Make sure your tailoring what you're saying to the person you're speaking to.
It's funny, for years I've had two garage door companies as clients. One on the east side of the city and one on the west side of the city. I started off marketing them the exact same, and I took them on within 6 months of each other. But after many years and many iterations, it became pretty clear that one is much better at selling new doors, and the other one is much better at repairs. I've helped them craft the kind of business they want to craft by finding the audience that suits them.
Lining them up
When I meet with a client, they usually know two of the three things.
They usually have a business, so they know what they're selling. They usually tell me what the message is. Since I am a search engine marketer, all I have to do is find out if there are people searching who want to hear the message. The search engine is the medium.
But this works as long as you know any two of the three.
Want to reach fitness enthusiasts on YouTube? Craft a strong enough message and you'll be huge. I've seen any number of quality influencers trying to reach new people getting in shape, experienced people trying to maximize gains, yoga enthusiasts, etc.
I've got a buddy that started by building an audience of middle-aged mostly single men (market) on Facebook (medium). It took him a little bit but he figured it out and started a beard cream business. His revenue today is a healthy seven figures, uses several social media platforms plus email.
But what if you have the product, a strong selling proposition, and you know who needs it? Then it's just a matter of figuring out what the right medium to deliver your messages. Are your people even on YouTube or Google? We can make some assumptions, like tick tockers tend to be younger and Facebookers tend to be older. But would word of mouth or TV advertising be better? Sometimes you test several mediums until you find the right ones for you.
I think where people struggle with marketing is when they only have one of the three.
Man I've got this great idea for a product, but I have no idea who will buy it.
Gosh I really want to help people struggling with divorce, but I have no idea how to help them or reach them.
I'm really really good at TikTok videos or copywriting or graphic design, but I have no idea who needs my service or how I solve an actual problem.
And truth be told, I'd be stuck in those situations too.
We say this on the forum a lot. If you want to start a business ask yourself what is a problem that you can solve that someone will pay you to solve.
If you don't know that, then this article won't help you.
But if you do know that, then here's the next step.
As you're trying to think of what business to build, start thinking in terms of what messages you want to be sending through which mediums to reach what people.
Or, you can take this in reverse.
If I were this person with this problem (remember Suzie), what mediums would I be seeking in order to find a solution? What message(s) would work on me?
Ultimately it's as simple as this, Suzie has a problem, and you need to find a way to send her a message letting her know that you have the solution.
Hopefully this makes marketing a little easier and gets your gears turning and helps you find more of your Suzies or Sams.
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