Embrace the process

What process? All processes.. fitness goals, career goals, financial goals, etc. Embrace the process! But this article is geared towards those that are trying to grow their business — the entrepreneurs and independent workers- all of whom create their own income.

At the end of the day it is all a process and embracing that process actually makes your business grow. The question is, how? I’ve always been a strong advocate of telling your own story and staying true to your audience as the most effective self-marketing strategies. Be honest! Don’t pretend to be an established presence if you are still grassroots. On the contrary, embrace the grassroots stage! You will observe how those that are in that same stage will gravitate towards you but also those that are more established will too simply because they have been there and recognize the potential and opportunity.

How else can embracing the process help? It can help you better understand what it is you need focus on in order to grow. Embracing that grassroots phase of your business allows you to learn and grow as an entrepreneur and gives you the chance to make mistakes, learn from them and do better next time. Therefore, it is also important to be humble- a good month does not mean you’ve “made it,” it just means you did something right that lead to that good month. Figure out what that “something” is and apply it consistently. Consistency is key, which brings me to my next point.

What stage are you in? Have you taken the right steps to lead you to the next one? Are you a freelancer or are you a legitimate business? How can your audience tell the difference? Three key marketing points will let your audience know if you are an established company and will determine who seeks your business:

  • Legitimacy
  • Consistency
  • Reach

Legitimacy. Your audience has to know you are a real business- a serious entity! If you are an established company then your branding should reflect that. Branding is more than just a logo. Seek a professional agency and create a brand for your company that will establish trust in your audience and reflect your company’s culture and values. Branding will create exponential positive changes for your business.

Consistency. You invested in your brand and branding package- excellent! How should you use it and across which platforms should it being reflected? Simple answer: ALL! If you create an email campaign, create a social media post with it. If you create a social media post and consistent email campaign, then make sure your website also reflects the same information. Consistency! Hit them from all angles, which brings me to my next point..

Reach. How do you reach your current audience and how can you reach an even wider audience? You have to get in front of as many eyes as possible and when you do you have to seize the opportunity. There are a few tools that can help you with this:

  • Social Media
  • Email Campaign
  • Website

Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and these social platforms are no longer where you go to post about Happy Hour. Save Snapchat for that. Use these channels to promote your brand! I am not saying to not show personality. But you need to be conscious of the opportunities these platforms present as well as the quality of the content you upload. Social media is your modern day advertising, client relations and community marketing all in one. How, you ask? Publications are your advertising. Interactions with your core network are your client relations. Interacting with your target audience is your community marketing. Read that one over to understand the power of these platforms. Call me for a thorough explanation.

An email campaign is your business development department. Email is your massive reach and distribution. You want to reach as many people as possible and email offers you that. We all email and we all receive advertising through it. The only ones that bother us are the ones we have no interest on or that are poorly done. What does that tell you? Have a target audience- a niche market- and tell them only what they need to hear. Also, invest in a correct, strategized and designed email campaign. And most IMPORTANT- Be consistent with your social media and your…. next

Website is lead capture. The web design romantics will make it to be more than that but in reality that is all it should serve as. And what is wrong with that? Lead capture is the most important part of the entire marketing campaign. Ok, I’m exaggerating a bit to make a point. In reality a website offers other very important benefits like searchability, informational platforms and even transaction portals for those that may need. It automates many processes which is very important for business. It is your very own secretary and you should take full advantage of it.

Now, let’s run a little exercise to make sure we understand these points: Let’s say you are a real estate agent- you most likely have an email campaign you run once a week, but if those receiving it go to your social media (and they likely will) and don’t find consistent publications, you likely have lost a client. They will click on a profile tag and 10 minutes later they are 20 accounts far away from yours.

Let’s go a different way: You are a busy real estate agent — You have social media but you are busy working and only sporadically post about work. Most of your publications are done in your free time when you actually have time to share something. You post about a new listing and direct people to a link of your property, but it is not a link to your website because you refuse to see the value of having one, instead it links to Zillow/realtor/other. A possible buyer sees your social post, goes to the link and from there they see a picture of another agent who paid for advertising space, they assume the agent is associated with the listing, click and send an email with questions. And since you rarely share on social media about Real Estate the association of you as an agent has not been established with your audience to contact you directly. Result: Another agent is paid and you now lost another possible client.

Last one: Let’s say you have your website and you are disciplined about posting on social media but rarely email. You now decide to embrace email as part of your marketing strategy but it just so happens that your email campaign uses different fonts, colors, pictures filters, voice and other branding details that you did not take into account. Your audience receives information on social media but it looks different from your emails (which usually comes from a Gmail account — but that’s another conversation), which are also different from your website. On email you use RED because you read somewhere it attracts attention. On your website you use palm trees because it is “So Miami” and on your social media you use app-based decorations to write your messages. Your audience will not remember you, they will not be inspired to work with you and you will lose time, resources and effort.

You do Real Estate! Let us do what we do best.

Contact me for questions on how to improve your marketing CLICK HERE.

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Storyteller | Content + Graphics Professional

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